RELATIVE COMFORT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Must a rich man sleep under a heavy blanket or is a trio of flimsier blankets sufficient to do the trick? This has been the most unusual problem that came to court in the person of Ezra Hartmont, a local inventor who is also the scion of the wealthiest family in the state. Hartmont was accused by his grandparents of assault, not against them but against their house manager, and in court the young man insisted that his anger was precipitated by being given not his favorite thick blanket but rather three thin ones, layered, which he, keeping the temperature at fifty degrees in the room, as always, found intolerable, not so much for failing to create warmth but for creating, along with that warmth, what he called in testimony “complication in the form of blankets tangled and folded, pockets of space, horrible creases.” The grandparents insisted that the house manager was doing all possible given that the thick blanket had not existed for a decade at the very least, and that Hartmont was regressing wildly. The judge found that there was nothing inherently derogatory in offer three blankets instead of one, and sentenced Hartmont to a month in jail. “There,” the judge said, “you will get one blanket, at absolute most.” 

THE FALLEN

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A man was found at the base of the tallest building in town. Witnesses reported that he had jumped from the eleventh floor deck. From his jacket pocket, first responders retrieved a piece of paper with a handwritten message that they were unwilling to describe as a suicide note. “It is, however,” a spokesperson for the department conceded, “a note written by, and on the person of, a suicide.”  “It is important in this case to subtilize,” said another spokesperson. A third passed out a piece of paper to reporters that included a scanned copy of the note and a definition of the word “subtilize.” A fourth read the text of the note aloud: “The nation staggered forward, then staggered backwards, then staggered forward, then staggered backwards. During the forward movement, people imagined that the process had been streamlined and even perfected, that it would continue at the same if not a faster pace. Critical thought was blurred by good feeling. During the backward movement, people split into two camps, one characterized by hope (the backward movement would taper off and the nation would be returned to advancement), the other by despair (the backward movement had exposed the advancement as fragile, had shattered it, and the entire project now teetered on the brink of ruin). Both camps, in persisting in believing in progress as a real thing, were the mirror images of each other. They stood on opposite sites of a line, wearing expressions that were the inverse of one another, holding ideas that were the inverse of each other, believing that those across the line were benighted and misguided, rather than what they actually were, which was identical.” A fifth spokesperson then collected the pieces of paper, a sixth put them in a folder, a seventh put the folder in a briefcase, and an eighth pulled around. All of them crowded into it and, following the roar of an engine and the screech of tires, disappeared around the corner. A ninth spokesperson remained, evidently left behind, to answer the reporters’ questions that carbonated the air. 

THE WAY THE MAYOR WINCED

A new malady has been identified in the region, and officials are not sure what to call it. “We would not say a virus, necessarily,” said the mayor, after which he motioned to his left and welcomed Dr. Frances J. Bufalina to the microphone. Bufalina began by stressing that she is not an epidemiologist proper but rather a psychoepidemiologist. “That does not mean I am a psycho,” she said to laughter from the crowd, “though my husband might disagree,” more laughter, “so, though, what it does mean is that I specialize in investigating how mental conditions pass from one person to the next in a society, for example anxiety, for example paranoia, for example anger.” Now there was no laughter. She endeavored to describe her most recent discovery. “I can only give an example and leave it to you to decide if you have experienced the same thing,” she said. “Yesterday I was taking recycling out to the bin on my driveway, and a small cardboard box fell out of the bin and landed next to the bin. My first thought was to leave it there. Who cares that it didn’t reach its destination? I began to walk away. Four steps later I was consumed by a feeling that mixed guilt, self-reproach, and a simple recognition of how easy it would be to take four steps back toward the bin— that would be eight steps wasted in all, but only eight steps—and put the little box where it should be. That is what I did. But what was that moment of fleeting resistance to what should be done? Can it derail us? Can we always depend on that moment of recognition of a simple solution? And so, see, we have begun to see cases springing up across town that are similar but not identical, and that affect all corners of our lives: organizing meetings at work, picking up children from school, acting with intimacy in marriages. A minor obstacle arises in the completion of a task, and we balk at the effort required and to some degree revel in its incompletion. We begin to move back toward a world of chaos that we have in part created, only to—we hope—have our better nature settle back upon us. We do not know the precise progress of this disease, let alone its fulcrum, so we are watching closely for the moments when the momentum of walking away outstrips the magnetic pull of returning to fulfill the obligation in question.” The mayor now returned to the lectern. Bufalina made one final remark, which explained that she has dubbed the new condition “rorgetfulness,” which she called “an inelegant portmanteau combining elements of regret and forgetfulness.” From the way the mayor winced, it is unlikely this name will stick.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

COOKSHOW

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Making a meal of this rare tree-bird, which has different names in different regions—in the North and Northeast it is a known as a Grey-Throated Warbler, in the West a Black-Tipped Irene, in the South a cripsy—involves three distinct stages: first it must be captured, which is not as easy as it may appear (the bird is slow but exceptionally intelligent); then it must be turned from a living creature to a dead one, and then further transformed into a piece of what is known in the culinary industry as “pre-meat” (the head is removed, and with it the beak, and then the feet and with them the claws), bringing it closer in both appearance and function to what will eventually be food. This blissful stage is defined by the absence of what is to follow, which is heat, killing heat (though it is being applied to a being already dead), which has the power to burn both the skin and what is within it, and to make the first stage, the capture, which began with the cripsy (or Irene or warbler) in a tree, calling out happily, articulating the only word it knows, which can be translated as “freedom,” into a distant but still painful memory.

THE TRAGIC FALL OF DR. MITCHELL

Dr. Mitchell held a clear lead on Dr. Simmons, Amy Hammond, Britt Hoyt, and Jack “Blue Light” DeMarco, with Johnny Bledsoe last, for the first six blocks of the morning walk to the hospital, but in the next crucial stretch Blue Light and Hammond passed Simmons. After reaching the halfway point—the corner of Kick and Middleton—Simmons, rallying, regained second place, and began to walk more quickly before turning onto Oak, but was challenged a block from the parking lot by Hoyt and Dr. Jarvis (the latter coming in from Brick Lane), Hoyt getting the best of a desperate finish by virtue of the protruding prow of his larger briefcase. A shoe length divided second and third. Amy Hammond was fourth, Johnny Bledsoe fifth, Blue Light sixth, and Dr. Mitchell last. 

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

BOUNCING BACK

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Arthur Walker, speaking at a Masculinity and Meaning event at Benoiff Hall yesterday, said he wished to utter a warning against the growing tendency among men, whether frustrated singles, contented husbands, or divorced fathers — “and I have been all three,” he said, eliciting laughter from the crowd — to blame themselves for the problems that afflict them, especially in relationships with others. If that state of freighted self-consciousness was going to spread in male minds, it could destroy them from within and take from society the very figures who had been its sheet anchors in the past. He went on to hope aloud that in spite of the momentary embarrassment of recent years, in which men have looked inward without a corresponding willingness to hold others to account, he was confident that there would arise a stronger sense of men not as problem but as solution, that, as a result of its size and coherence, was bound to succeed.

DARE TO KNOW

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Yesterday at Redfern Cemetery, the deputy mayor, Peter Dreyfus, held his annual service at the gravesite of his great-great-grandfather Haworth Dreyfus, one of the earliest settlers in the region and a founder of at least two neighboring towns. As in past years, the living Dreyfus paid homage to his ancestor by reading from Horace's Epistularum liber primus, and particularly Epistle II:  “Dimidium facti qui coepit habet: sapere aude.” The beginning of the line is usually translated as “He who has begun is half done,” but Peter Dreyfus has his own gloss on the text, as he explained this year—and has, in fact, explained every year he has conducted his memorial at Redfern. “Latin is a dead tongue but we must make it live once again,” he said, “And so I read it as ‘He who does well would do well to begin’ or ‘Half the battle is taking up arms’ or ‘If you don’t start, you’ll never finish’ or ‘Getting a fish in your hand is a foregone conclusion once you have stepped into the right stream.’” Yet again, it was not clear what this quote has to do with Haworth Dreyfus. It was not a text known to him—he was illiterate—and he hated the name Horace with a passion, as a man named Horace Terwilliger stole his first love from him. That woman, Mary Winston, became Terwilliger’s wife, and the two of them became patrons of the arts in the early days of the region, supervising the construction of an opera house, while Haworth Dreyfus succumbed to drink and died penniless. Even Peter Dreyfus took no liberties with the translation of sapere aude: “Dare to know!”

KAREN SAYS TALL

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

In the early hours of Saturday morning Dewey McAllister and his wife Alice, who live in Woodcut Estates, a residential suburb roughly ten miles south of Change Lake, awoke to find a man in their bedroom. The intruder, who held in one hand a flashlight and in the other a knife, directed the couple to the kitchen, where he turned on the gas stove and demanded that the McAllisters tell him where they kept their money. “The bank,” said Mrs. McAllister, at which point Mr. McAllister began gibbering hysterically about a metal box in the spandrel. Once it was established exactly what a spandrel was, the man located it and opened it, finding only fifty dollars. “This is terrible,” he said, throwing it to the ground. The clatter awoke the McAllisters’ young daughter Karen, who ran into the kitchen screaming. “Hey,” the burglar said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt anyone.” He turned off the gas and left. The man, who has not been apprehended, was described as “short” by Mrs. McAllister and “tall” by Karen. Mr. McAllister is still gibbering. 

IN A MARVELOUS MANNER

Simon Essen, eight, this morning officially notified his parents of his intention to walk from home to Shuli’s Comix. He made a beautiful start and all went well till Alarum Park, at which point a violent storm appeared above him, drenching his clothes and hair with sudden fierceness. He ran for cover, certain he would have to turn and head for home, but even before he could reach the gazebo in the center of the park, the skies cleared in a marvelous manner and Simon was able to continue on into town and purchase the latest issue of Green Fox amid great enthusiasm. On page nine, Jason Teller, the nuclear scientist who had been shot with a radioactive bullet and transformed into a crusader equipped with the ability to control the flow of power, was himself caught in a rainstorm, and created around his head an invisible spherical shield that he, in a joking aside, referred to as a "braincoat." Simon laughed at that louder and longer than he would have before his walk. 

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

GIANTS OF MODERN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERNIG TOMBSTONES

1. N. Joseph Woodland

2. Ray Dolby 

3. Jerry Merryman 

4. Larry Tesler

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Jensen Calico, the local troubadour, turned ninety yesterday, and he performed a new song of his own creation that he said was untitled. “That’s the name,” he said. “But you can call it anything you want.” As usual, he permitted those present to record and distribute it as they wished, with his only request being that the lyrics be printed in full in the paper. “It’s how I’ve always done it,” he said. “It’s cheaper than hiring a secretary, and I like sometimes walking around town and seeing a scrap of paper blow across the street and wondering if a part of one of my songs is on it.” Calico’s first song, “Put An End To It All,” appeared in the paper seventy-one years ago, when he was still known as Eugene Johnson; since then, more than three hundred lyrics have been published. Here, the editors have chosen to alter Calico’s title slightly.

“Untitle”

A bird shot from the drainpipe, singing someone’s name—
Not an ordinary person, but a woman born to fame. 

Her father was an actor. Her mother was a priest. 
Her sister was a shadow until her weight increased. 

At midnight, three conductors came out to the farm. 
They were looking for the bird. They meant to do it harm. 

The woman had decamped from there and journeyed to the sea. 
Her eyes were filled with sadness. They were large and looked at me. 

A man stood with his back to us. He was bald right through his hat. 
She said he was Napoleon, but I’d have none of that. 

She closed her hand around my hand and kissed me nice and slow;
After which she pulled me down into the waves below. 

Then the sea closed over us. The sky above withdrew. 
I didn’t know just where we were, or even what I knew. 

Beside us in the water was a mailbox and a map, 
One inside the other, held there with a strap. 

“We should go north, and fast,” she said, her voice consumed with love. 
Then she took off everything, except for one black glove. 

The fingers of anemones were flickering like lights 
As the bird sang out her name, distant in the heights. 

The woman shook her head but she didn’t say a word. 
I asked if she’d wake me up. She curtsied and demurred.

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT IS INEXTINGUISHABLE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The term “grabbery” is used in two related but different senses in the literature. In both cases, the term refers to some form of appropriated reasoning. However, in the historically earlier sense, it refers to the use of appropriated reasoning in generating a new rationale, while in the sense employed most frequently in the last century it refers to the use of appropriated reasoning in justifying a rationale that has already been advanced, often in panic. It is the second of these two senses that Gordon P. W. Wheelock will discuss in his lecture to the Library Society, “Highway Grabbery: How the Politicians and Scientists of Our Time Shoot First and Tell You Why They Shot Later, Along With Telling You Why Shooting Was The Only Reasonable Thing To Do Given the Circumstances.” The talk will be followed by a reception. Punch and lemonade will be served, along with cookies baked by Wheelock himself, who prides himself on his innovative cookie creations and who will debut a number of new varieties, including Inverted Panda, Lemon Bear Picnic Massacre Snaps, and Chocolate Chip A La Pasta Fazool. “They sound ridiculous but taste de-liculous,” he said on the phone, noting that this is also the slogan of his cookie company, Gordo’s Best.

ROCKETING NORTHWARD

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Twice within a few days the intersection of Kick Street and Logic Avenue has undergone the mortification of a major accident. Three lives have been lost and seven people injured between them, the first being a simple if strange matter of a man suffering a major heart attack behind the wheel and speeding headlong into a brick wall, crushing the front of his car flat, the second the strange accident of a tractor-trailer packed with chickens and ping pong balls (an earlier truck had broken down, necessitating the unconventional double load) blowing a front tire in the 4100 block of Logic and skidding sideways, where it was split in half by a beautiful vintage convertible sports car rocketing northward on Kick. The truck driver was thrown from his cab and impaled on a stop sign that was being serviced at the time, though it was not involved in the accident in any matter. The law provides for a thorough sifting of the causes of such a serious traffic mishap. That now commences. It is worth noting that the convertible was traveling so fast that it passed cleanly through the crash scene, obtaining not a single scratch. Hours later, the driver coughed up a chicken feather, a fitting punctuation to the tragic day. 

AN ILLUMINATED PORTRAIT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The tallest man in town is kindly lending his town house next Friday afternoon for the presentation to Penny Jee of an illuminated portrait of herself and a check for an undisclosed amount (though said to be upwards of ten thousand dollars) in recognition of the services that this talented young lady has rendered to the town. It was Jee who, with her ex-husband Randall, founded a company to translate between the town’s government and its large and vibrant Korean community. For more than three years, since Randall ended the marriage and left town — he had a fantasy of being a magician, one that he is still pursuing, performing up and down the coast as “Randy the Incredible” — she has served as a one-woman news service, delivering updates on everything from property taxes to new residential construction to environmental regulations. As she is fond of saying, “I could publish a newspaper, but it is far easier just to talk, record it, and distribute my updates through various platforms and networks for people who need to hear them.” She usually follows this by quickly conceding that “this is not exactly a catchy slogan, but it’s the truth, and the truth always catches on.” Jee’s health has been for some short time in a precarious condition, having strained her voice through overwork and then suffered severe secondary anxiety over the fate of her only vital instrument. “Randy the Incredible” appears at TideTown Theater next Wednesday, debuting a new nutrition-themed show entitled “Pick a Carb, Any Carb.” 

NFL INJURY REPORT

By Ben Greenman

Originally in The New Yorker, October 2009

PROBABLE 

QB Jim Perkins (elbow)

QUESTIONABLE 

WR Louis Howard (toe), WR Dequan Pope (groin), CB Trevor Rolle (biceps)

 

DOUBTFUL

TE Anthony Geraghty (knee), DL Tim Plumley (concussion), DL Ross Harris (years ago, in Buffalo, where he grew up, he had a lawnmowing business. He was an enterprising teenager and managed to put away a considerable amount of cash. One day, he was hired by the Lawrence family over on Jasper Street. He jumped at the chance because Mr. Lawrence, Don, was the head football coach at the university, and Ross, who was already a high school star, harbored dreams of playing for Coach Lawrence one day. Ross mowed the Lawrence’s lawn all summer. He gave coach Lawrence a discount. Mrs. Lawrence brought him lemonade or water sometimes, and once she invited him to stay for dinner. The Lawrences had no kids of their own, and for a while there Ross almost felt like part of the family. Then, one week in August, he was over at the Lawrence place when a young woman he hadn’t seen before came outside. “Hi,” she said. She was in her twenties, he figured, older than he was but younger than Mr. or Mrs. Lawrence. She introduced herself as Anita, a friend of the Lawrences from out of town. Anita vanished back inside the house and then returned with a bottle of Italian beer for Ross. “Coach Lawrence loves Italian beer,” she said, “so I’m thinking maybe you will too.” Ross had never had it but he nodded. When the woman handed him the bottle, he noticed a small deep scar at the side of her mouth. It made her look a little cruel but also more attractive. She caught him looking. “I went through a car window in an accident when I was seventeen,” she said. “My husband says it makes me look like a gun moll.” Ross was seventeen and he said so. Anita laughed and told him that when he was done he should come inside, because the Lawrences, who were out of town, had left him an envelope. She thought it might contain a summer bonus. “Might contain,” he said when she left. He liked the sound of that. He hurried through the rest of his job and went inside. Anita was sitting on the couch and called him over. She kissed him once and asked him if he wanted to go upstairs with her. Ross was big, and though other kids thought he was experienced for his age, the truth is that he had never been with a girl, let alone a woman with a scar on her mouth and a husband who said things like “gun moll.” He stammered an answer that he could only reconstruct later, when his heart had slowed. No, he said, but maybe they could just stay on the couch. They did stay on the couch, mostly, though they also used the chair next to it and a bean bag-type thing in the corner of the room. Anita was a little cruel; in that regard, the scar was an accurate predictor. Ross collected his clothes and left in terror, forgetting the envelope with the summer bonus. The next week, he came to the house and rang the bell. Coach Lawrence answered the door. Before Ross could even speak, Coach Lawrence blew up at him. “That was my sister,” he said. “She was between hospitals and staying with us for a few days.” Ross was dumbfounded. “Hospitals?” he repeated. “Psychiatric facilities,” Coach Lawrence said, biting every syllable. “When we were kids, she tried to burn down our house a few times a year. She got that scar from one of those times, when she stayed in the burning house too long and then had to jump through a window. People around town know about her. You mean to tell me you don’t?” Ross said he didn’t gossip much on account of devoting himself to football. Coach Lawrence steadied himself against the doorway. “She was fine until she was thirteen, and then her mother, my mother, went through a difficult time, and she somehow passed that on to Anita. They call it folie imposée.” Ross said that he was sorry. Coach Lawrence’s face, which had softened momentarily, hardened again. “She’s in no condition to be taken advantage of,” Coach Lawrence said. “You had better pray she isn’t pregnant.” Coach Lawrence closed the door, more in defeat than in anger. A few weeks later, Coach Lawrence resigned suddenly from the university to become a pro coach, an assistant with an expansion franchise. Ross attended the university, where he was a two-time All-American, and was drafted high in he second round by San Francisco. His rookie year, he led the team with 9.5 sacks, finishing third in rookie of the year voting. In the offseason, Don Lawrence was named the head coach of the Buffalo franchise. When Ross found out that San Francisco was traveling to Buffalo in the second game of the season, he waved his hands in front of him like he was fending off a rumor. “Can’t play,” he said. He made the trip to give his team emotional support and then, on Saturday night, drove slowly by the old Lawrence place. The lawn was well kept. On Sunday he holed up in his hotel where he watched TV and drank a six-pack of Italian beer, for old times’ sake).

OUT

CB Antoine Harris (hamstring)

TEAMWORK

A detective spent years not knowing what he was looking for, after which he gave up, after which he expired. A retired detective decided the death was suspicious and asked his superiors if he could return to the force to investigate. An aspiring detective encountered the retired detective in an abandoned building and, startled, fired into the darkness. The bullet passed through the retired, ricocheted, tore into the brain of the aspiring, liberated his mind. In an afterlife none of them had previously suspected, all three detectives teamed up to solve the case.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

RELIANCE ON RELIANCE IS UNRELIABLE AT BEST

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

In order to complete the process, the true believer has to reverse position and hold on with his or her mind while attempting to free the ideas remaining entangled. Old convictions and the skeleton of reason can be seen. Supporting arguments pulled from inside are also visible. The dogma is almost extricated.

NO ONE WAS SAVED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A fire began at the intersection of Green-Gray Avenue and Best Brown Street that tore clear through the retropolitan area, in the sense that it began in the present and spread backwards into the past. No one was saved and so no one was ever there, which means in turn that no one was there earlier today, which means that there were no injuries. A paradoxical hose sprayed out all water and no water at once. “I cannot comment,” said the fire chief, commenting in a similar vein. His father was a cop. His grandfather was a dog trainer. His great-grandfather was a stipendiary magistrate. His great-great-grandfather was killed in an unrelated fire before he ever got started in life. Poor kid.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF RESTORED CONTACT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Sarah Torv, 29, has decided to get back in touch with her ex-boyfriend Pete, who is suffering from a serious illness. It is a step that commands praise, though taken a little late and with a somewhat clumsy sense of dramatic effect that included a call to her new boyfriend, Keith, in which the announcement of restored contact was both preceded and followed by a fusillade of aggrieved sighs that functioned as the audible equivalent of hand-wringing. We hear a good deal about letting bygones be bygones, but Torv has thus far been slow to let go of grudges or forfeit the perception that staying away accrues goodwill in her current relationship.

LOCAL WEATHER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

This has been a stormy and disturbing day in and around the Espers, and the family is being taxed to its utmost. In Maria, a morning rage accumulated and, absent any healthy outlet, was delivered in full to her husband Dave over what was intended to be a pleasant lunch. A sense of being thwarted by history has prevailed in Lucy, and Christina has already informed the others to expect a slow and irreversible sinking into surliness over the course of the evening. The climate inside the house is both chilly and overheated and with any additional stresses it it feared that the entire infrastructure will give way.

MAKING PEACE WITH THE PRESENT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Late last night, on the corner of Lasser and White Oak streets, a woman stopped to clench her fists and scream. Eyewitnesses described it as the sound of empty wind coming across an empty land.

BUCKY AND THE BEES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Local police have reported a sharp increase in arrests for imposture, particularly among scientists concerned with measuring the psychological distress that has become more prevalent since the early spring—and the investigation of which has, since early summer, been prohibited by law. Psychologists, parapsychologists, apparitionists, esotericists, and other mind-body investigators now go about their days as if they are not who they are, concealing the tools of their trade. A Shake Meter may be painted to look like a cup of coffee. Worry Sheets can now be folded in quarters and secreted within the credit-card slots of ordinary wallets. Balfour Collection Rods, attached to the rear of a pair of glasses, pass for simple temple tips. All of this is intended to thwart the police, and often does, though Professor Samuel A. Jeffries was hauled in when it was discovered that his top hat had within it a Buzz Cylinder designed to allow him to practice a surreptitious apitherapy. Jeffries was also wearing a false mustache and a name tag that identified him as “Bucky.”

THREE MEN NAMED JOHN

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Three men named John, all auto mechanics, each employed by a different company whose name differs from his own but closely resembles that of one of the others (John O’Neal, employed by Bostic Body Shop; John Bostick, employed by Andrews Auto Body and Repair; and John Anderson, employed by Neil’s Collision Craft), were vacationing together with their wives and families at Standard Kill Falls when they gathered for a photo and, as a trio, tumbled backwards and fell a distance of fifty feet down into the falls. O’Neal and Bostick have been released with serious but not life-threatening injuries, though the experience has caused both men to reassess their lives. O’Neal has quit his job at Bostic, while Bostick is putting together an investment group to purchase the four local Andrews franchises, to which he plans to add car washes and snack bars, the latter featuring the trademark “three-grilled cheese with egg” that he has been cooking for his family most Sundays for the last decade. Anderson is still in the hospital. “We are keeping his seat warm for him,” said Neil O’Connor, his employer, “and hope to see him back here soon. There’s a 1951 Muntz Jet that needs his touch.” Doctors have not yet released specifics about his condition, though there are rumors that he has lost his memory and may not be able to handle A-arms, four-wheel hydraulic brakes, dual coil ignition, or any other facet of the car.

HOT HOT HOT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled 

It was still intensely hot this morning, but by midday a stiff breeze from the west managed to mitigate the oppressive rays of the sun. The thermometer set records all day. At eight this morning it was 91 degrees. At nine it was 92. At ten it was 94. The temperature reached 95 by eleven, but then began to back down a bit, and it did not exceed 92 for the rest of the day. The city parks were quiet places except for a few small children running around nearly naked with buckets of water. The following are the fatal cases of sunstroke which occurred over the past two days: Walter Martin, a bartender; Richard Brenton, the founder of a corporation that manufactures environmentally responsible elastic waistbands; George Tyson, a cab driver; Jeremiah Nelson and Harold Christopher, unknown. In addition to those, four men and women entrusted with measuring the temperature at various sites around the city also temporarily succumbed, though they are expected to recover: Cece Pelton, Howard Gunn, Brandon Garcia, and Alberta Curiosity. 

MEANINGFULLY DISTINGUISHED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Perhaps the finest recent portrait of an absence—“Buco Vuoto,” by the Italian artist Argento Rumoroso—is now to be seen at the Greenback Gallery, where Professor Flinders Perkins is holding his annual exhibition of works that do not and can never exist. All the works here are identical to one another—the Rumoroso cannot be meaningfully distinguished from a canvas by the German painter Lotte Silber or a sculpture by the Finnish ironworker Melissa Hopea, even by the most trained eye—and all were found last winter by Perkins and the students of the Berke School on their yearly tour of Europe, which none of them took. 

TOO LATE TO MAKE A FIRST IMPRESSION

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

"I suppose nothing is more surprising than discovering, as we always do, how unlike people are from our preconceptions of them.”  This insight, delivered to a crowded Hawes Ballroom last night by Barrett Koips in toasting the healths of David and AnneMarie Battista, who were the guess of honor at the annual Fence Club dinner at the Glass Hotel, by degrees walked right up to the question: “How should we imagine the man whose contributions to eradicating poverty in the city are equalled only by his immortally lovely songs and the voice with which he delivers them?” Koips continued. “We all know the songs, from ‘Hearts Are Lifted’ to ‘Rooftop Prayer’ to ‘Do Your Part, For Your Part is Never Done.’ Surely, we picture him as a being who floats above the rest of the town, observing us with judicious wisdom and perhaps even slight disappointment, offset of course by his deep love for all aspects of humanity, even its flaws . He has a harp, certainly, and wings, does he not?” Koips paused to sip from a glass of wine. “This was my impression at first and for a very long time before I had the pleasure of meeting David. I was not prepared for this man who sits here tonight: a quick wit with a frequently dirty sense of humor, a sharp card player, a fan of the obscure monster movies, an amateur boxer, a mullet-wearer, a madcap.” David Battista reached down under his chair and  came up with a small harp, which he placed on the table to the amusement of the crowd. 

EMPHASIZING THE PARAMOUNT NECESSITY

Speaking at the annual conference of the Oak County Association of Annual Conference Planners yesterday, former organization president Louis Russo emphasized the paramount necessity of supplementing any annual conference with multiple additional meetings throughout the course of the year, the chief objectives of this augmented schedule being some or all of the following: blue-skying initial ideas, settling upon a smaller and more obtainable set of forward-facing benchmarks, endeavoring to achieve those goals, and then following up afterwards to determine both successes and failures and how expectations can be adjusted before the next annual conference. "In these days of hurry and scurry," Russo said, "too many conferences rocket from one year to the next without these moments of thought. This means not only poor planning but all too often dilapidation and collapse of the event itself. Some conferences go off in a condition that is a reproach to civilization." His voice had a music to it that brought him back to the days when he used to sing. He performed in lounges mostly, first under his own name, then under the name "Blue Lou." Geraldine, his duet partner, had stayed in the trenches longer, even after Lou left for law school, and scored a minor disco hit with "Blind Love." Lou always thought the initials of the title were a secret wink to him. He and Geraldine had been hot and heavy for a while. Geraldine! He sighed thinking of her, reddened, and apologized to the other conference planners. "Let's break for lunch," Lou said, careful not to sing it. 

©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

RETURN TO SENDER TO SENDER TO SENDER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Four people (names unknown) were abducted from a house (address unknown) on Wednesday (date unknown). A page was found at the crime scene, apparently ripped from a diary or journal. It had only a short paragraph rendered in blue ink:

Dunkirk to Paris, jog left for Ghent, no, too far, but I can make Lens, right? The mirror in the car has been polished to a shine, and yet I still cannot see that it is me in there, not even when I squint. In Lens a woman is standing outside a small grocery and a dog almost as large as her has his paws up on the wall as if the two of them are schoolmates on a break from an exam. In Ghent there’s a young boy, maybe not even as old as the girl, holding a guitar that has no case. Neither the boy or the girl is in the trunk. I never went to Ghent. I never even went to Lens. I am looking in the mirror at a liar’s eyes. 

It was unclear who wrote it or if it fact it had ever even been written.

STARTING SOMEWHERE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

An engineer and technologist, Odion Bello, this week succeeded in extracting new letters from the atmosphere by means of a device he has invented. Bello, a native of Benin, has been a resident of town for twelve years now, since his marriage to the former Clara Bedfield, the principal of Cypress Middle School, and he carried out his experiments atop a large plexiglas cube in his family’s backyard as his ten-year-old twins, Isoke and Ode, looked on. Bello sat upon a rotating stool in the center of the cube’s top face, wearing protective gloves, and antenna were mounted in pairs on the lawn exactly ten meters from each of the cube’s lateral faces. Electricity at a strength of 6,000 volts was received by the antenna and transferred to the cube by underground wires, at which point it was transformed to a safe voltage that resulted in the appearance of symbols on the surface of the cube in a circle around the stool—and by extension around Bello. Isoke and Ode, who could see the letters (albeit backwards) began to call out names for them: “Deta,” “Des,” “Rance,” “Fift.” Bello them carefully peeled off the symbols and began to assemble them into a previously unknown alphabet.

HEREBY

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The mayor, in the course of a long dedication speech, reiterated that the new community center connected via overground walking bridge to the new library, and urged the town’s young people to avail themselves of the latter. “If you read a hundred things a day and one speaks to you to such a degree that you spark to it, and that moment of inspiration unfurls in imitation, slavish at first, emulation that verges on crude copying, but that over the course of the ensuing hour, and the day that follows, and the week that then slides through time, you find yourself introducing a single original thought or gesture or turn of phrase, and the piece read becomes a piece written, in whatever small way one becomes the other, then you have, all on your own, justified the cost of these shelves and volumes and in fact the entire complex, which also includes an indoor basketball court and an indoor pool, a snack bar and a billiards table, as well as an upstairs office with one key that is in my possession, and in that office I will sit often in a plush chair and close my eyes and try to encourage the alchemical process that I have sketched out above. Though you may not know I am there, I am there, a presence above, a signal, a spur, a jolt in the atmosphere.” He paused, sipped water, cleared his throat. He was not nearly done.

PLEASE RSVP, PLEASE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Costume parties, opening-night parties, formal parties, picnic parties, Oscar parties, Mars parties, circus parties, parties where guests had to bring a theme themselves, almost erotic parties scheduled puckishly for the Yuletide, parties in apartments and suburban houses and docked yachts and conference rooms, birthday parties at school where teachers ate cake that they knew would be available in the office refrigerator for the better part of the week, parties at home that celebrated a promotion or a visit or an illness narrowly averted, slick or sodden conversations held aloft like drinks no one really wanted but drank anyway, making eyes at other eyes, waiting vainly for the sound of real laughter. This was what people did, and what they did for each other, for better or for worse. 

WRITING TYPES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled 

Writing can be done for a number of different purposes and different audiences. These different forms of writing are known as “text types.” Factual texts inform, instruct or persuade by giving facts and information, while literary texts entertain or elicit an emotional response by using language to create mental images. Factual texts cannot entertain or elicit an emotional response, while literary texts cannot inform, instruct or persuade. Any text that tries to do the job of the other kind of text will be immediately addressed by the authorities. Audiences encountering texts may notice nearby figures, male or female, dressed in dark clothing and holding umbrellas even when it is not raining. These are compliance agents entrusted with ensuring that neither type of text crosses over into the other. They are armed and permitted to employ deadly force to prevent the interpenetration of types. They are required to employ this force. Nearly every compliance agent has drawn a weapon and fired, stilling the quickening of his or her heartbeat with years of training, shooting first the text and then the member or members of the audience encountering that text. At other times agents seek out those creating the texts and fire upon them with prevention in mind. Weapons can be drawn for a number of different purposes and different audiences. Writing can be done.

LITERALLY

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

By far the most rewarding of the new crop of stage plays is Aileen Alter’s “psychological tilt” at the Brandon, On To The Next One, with a lead role divided evenly among three triplets, the Herron Sisters, the best-known of whom,  Barbara, was the child lead on a network sitcom, Window Dressing, some years ago. The other two, Geraldine and Alice, have worked mostly in the theater. On To The Next One is special for analysts: not only professionals, but amateurs, not entirely satisfying, perhaps too preoccupied with its own method, but of its kind a sustained triumph. Partly fantasy, partly a biography of the European performance artist and cabaret singer Carol Weber, it tells the story of a talented painter named Angela who is pulled into one of her self-portraits (literally: the canvas encloses her) and emerges as three distinct personas: The Alien, who performs each task as if practicing humanity; The Bird, nervous and aware (if not always self-aware); and The Claimant, constantly in the process of trying to put a price on the wrongs she believes she has experienced. Each version of Angela has a distinct look and feel, from the Alien’s chilly sexuality to the Bird’s marmish intensity to the Claimaint’s generic businesswear, intended to convince insurance investigators of her credibility but in fact far more wild and sexual than either of the others—and yet, they are all the same look, in a sense, as they are all Herrons. The only other performers on stage are a full gospel choir, probably African-American from the sound of them but wearing featureless red masks throughout. Songs start and stop, punctured by monologues and puncturing them, and it all builds to a thrilling climax in which Angela’s three parts go to war, to bed, and then to hell.

FALLING INTO A HOLE IN THE CENTER OF A MIRROR

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Yesterday the Hawkins Branch Library hosted a talk by Nelson Raglin, the author of the recent Sage Business: A Comparative Study of the Great Wits and Wise Men (And Women) of the World, which he described in his opening remarks  as “a comparative study of the great wits and wise men (and women) of the world,” after which he laughed. It was not the last time he would do so. Mr. Raglin proved to be the very personification of mirth and merriment, from his ruddy complexion to his ample belly to his booming voice and, yes, his ready laugh. He stood in sharp contrast to the librarian who introduced him, thin and severe, with peregrine features, but even when she left the stage he held it with his jovial orotundity. The meat of yesterday’s talk consisted of reviewing what he called the “cross-cultural portrayal of the filled-to-capacity soul,” where he sketched out the ways in which each of the world’s great civilizations has propagated figures, either inventing fictional ones or exaggerating real ones, who convey both immense wisdom and immense bemusement that others cannot apprehend that wisdom independently and must struggle to appreciate it when it appears. “We call it WOMOWS, or Weary Old Man (Or Woman) Syndrome,” Raglin said, “and it is usually treated with a poultice of mordant deadpan.” He illustrated with a story that he said was originally from the Turkish. An old man was serving as community mediator, and a villager came to him with a complaint against a fellow neighbor. The old man heard the complaint and then rendered his judgment: “Yes, you are right.” An hour later, the other villager came to tell his side of the dispute. After listening carefully, the old man rendered his judgment: “Yes, you are right.” When the second villager left, the old man’s wife emerged from the back of the house. “Both men cannot be right,” she said. The old man considered her point. “Yes,” he said. “You are right." The audience laughed. The thin librarian reappeared. “What a diverting story,” she said, “though I had believed that it came first from the Persian.” Raglin smiled but did not say it. 

WELCOME, NEW GAZEBO

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A new study has revealed that the people in town sometimes come from town and sometimes come from elsewhere, though not everywhere else. “That’s right,” said Carlos Lamb, a demographer and the lead author on the study. “They come from Placid and Westconnie. They come from Mutter and Moorlock. They come from North Shoehorn and South Shoehorn as well. In the Ryegrass Estates area alone, we have nineteen different points of origin to worry about.” A second scientist sitting next to him, who would not give her name, interrupted. “Worry about?” she said. “Worry’s not the point. The point is that there are some places that no one comes from. We have no one here from Old Hamblin. We have no one from Knott. We have no one from Luxeme. I took this study to be a confirmation of unpredictable distributions and nothing more.” Lamb retook possession of the microphone. “But so many of the people I am mentioning are lacking in vitality,” he said, the cords in his neck asserting themselves. “They are the reason I have begun to organize a territorial force. We must protect what is ours, to whatever degree we can. The selfish and wrecking policy of blindly accepting all interlopers will drive us to ruin.” The nameless scientist stood to leave. “I think we’re done here,” she said. When contacted later, Lamb would not respond to a query regarding his own town of origin. The press conference was the first in the new Civic Gazebo, completed at a cost of nearly one million dollars, and gleaming.

ROWAN, 102

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

An anticyclone caused in part by a subtropical ridge over the Chestnut Island Retail Strip Mall determined the weather in town throughout most of yesterday. In the north the winds were moderate to severe, variable in all directions with only occasional respite, while in the south they alternated between north and east, and were light in force. In the west they were brisk and bright, tending friendly.  In the east they were proud and foolish. The corners of town enjoyed fair to fine weather, in the main, with a dusting of frost in late afternoon that was followed close behind by thin fingers of mist. The same conditions descended upon the town’s oldest resident, the retired physicist William Rowan, who said faint but loving goodbyes to his wife and children during the evening’s cold snap and expired under a full moon covered in part by clouds that can only be described as transpicuous. 

LISTENING TO THE BOOTLACE WORM

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A daring test of endurance, both for musicians and for those who enjoy listening to music, is being staged at the Sycamore Theater, where a week-long production has been mounted of the whole of Blitzstein’s “Worried Eyes.” Performances begin at midnight on Sunday and last through midnight the following Sunday. Three forty-minute intervals each day allow for the necessary consumption of food (coffee and eggs are served in the morning, and sandwiches and beer at other times), and there is a five-hour nightly adjournment during which spectators can run home, shower quickly, and even catch a quick nap if so inclined. This bold experiment has been tried only once before, in the Antipodes, where fully half of the audience stuck it out until the work’s last note, although more than two dozen players were treated for dehydration. Blitzstein himself will be in attendance for the first day and the last, though he is required to be in Berlin mid-week to receive an award for “Private Planes,” his second-most-celebrated work and in nearly every respect the diametric opposite of “Worried Eyes”: melodic where the other is atonal, written for a small ensemble where the other is written for a chamber orchestra, one minute long rather than more than seven thousand minutes long. “They are both my babies,” Blitzstein said in a statement yesterday, “though one baby is a ladybug and the other is a bootlace worm.”

DEPARTED FROM PINE HEIGHTS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Few dogs can claim to have “done their share” in the manner of Driver, a beagle who came to the Nash family in the Pine Heights neighborhood, from a nearby shelter, at the age of two, and remained there in continuous employment for fourteen years. Part companion, part guard, occasionally a teacher or a clown, Driver exhibited nearly all the traits desired by the Nashes, particularly the family’s young son, who was only three years old at the time of arrival. He departed from Pine Heights, and from the planet, after a morning incident in which a delivery man failed to close the gate in the fence surrounding the property, and Driver rushed out to bark at the man, who was by then returned to his truck. Only aggression was expressed in the transaction, and no visible injury was inflicted upon man by dog or vice versa, but the incident seemed to exhaust and sadden Driver, who went back inside the house, trotted upstairs, lay down on the small oval rug in the master bedroom, and silently expired. The Nashes’ son refused to comment on the matter, wiping tears even as he derided the situation as “sentimental in a way that prevents people from seeing the real emotions underneath”; he even refused to give his name. But canine longevity has only a relative significance in a society which considers a human still young at fifteen.

A GREAT JOB PACKING

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Four suitcases strapped to the top of a car speeding along the Little Arrowhead Expressway came loose and flew off into the night this past Saturday. One landed broadside on the shoulder of the road and split open, flinging free all manner of items, from shoes to books to snacks to razors to toothbrushes to neckwear to undergarments to flashlights to ice trays to magazines to a vintage pocket-watch. The other three suitcases remained in the air, where they hovered for a while and then ascended into the sky, never to be seen again. 

THE REGRETFUL OBSERVER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

“The leaves swirl, roll, twirl, surge, leap, lurch, and eddy with an astonishing agility that approaches music. The tree has an appalling dispassion and does not even move its branches. The air grows colder, the rain comes down, and that which has fallen to the ground disintegrates and is drawn into the soil.” So goes a description of what is happening every day all over town, and while the author is unknown, it is suspected that the account was penned by a man who often leans against a fence that runs along the southern edge of Porter Park. 

UNPRECEDENTED IN THE INDUSTRY

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Of the automatons, the Roll Corporation’s newest model contains features which will make it an object of particular interest. Made primarily of aluminum and lab-grown flesh, the Roll A3-8 is realistic to an unusual degree. It is capable of operating when there are not others around, which distinguishes it in the field. But of course, it is most useful in its encounters with humans. It is designed not only to speak directly to people when it encounters them on the street or in a restaurant, but to do so in a way that makes those people feel, ever so briefly, as if they are the automatons and that the creature addressing them is flesh and blood. Dr. Connery, the company’s chief engineer, noted during a recent tour of the Roll facility that this “ontological displacement” is unprecedented in the industry. In addition, he explained, the form of the apparatus is both beautiful and efficient, particularly when it comes to the environmental cost of manufacture. The sense organs are a departure from any that have been developed thus far, and the artificial pores are a source of special pride. “It grows hair,” Connery said. “On the face, under the arms, in the private region. I would say this is true of both male and female variations on the model, but that would misrepresent gender. We do not have genders, only one marvelous invention that can be programmed—or, if you wish, decorated—to look like a member of either gender.” Connery then stood and grasped the edge of his jaw. “This is the moment when I peel back my face and reveal myself to be an A3-8,” he said. A secretary hurried into the room. “He is joking,” she said. “I am,” Connery said. “Of course I am.” The secretary laughed. “Of course he is,” she said. Connery did not laugh.