Sculptures That Make No Sense

by Jeff M

We were sitting at the big oak booth, talking about our company's stocks when my nachos came. A massive shit-pile of beef scattered like pulverized gizzards at Shiloh. Sour cream spilled upon a mountain range of twisting chips --- smooth, smooth cream as if it had been dumped from a dragon's lingham minutes before.

"You heard the news, didn't you?"

I hadn't heard the news; I'm the reporter who's the last to know. I shoved one loaded chip into my mouth as if it were a bullet in a chamber. Well, here's the news.

"Company's stock fell over fifty cents, it's something like sixty-six cents now," he said --- he, my good friend, this writer of extraordinary enthusiasm and solid moral code. This guy tips waitresses --- any waitress --- ten bucks minimum.

This guy, who I'll name Sandman, he's a devout Christian and loves his Jesus; thing is, though, he once went with me to a Buddhist temple, slapped down $40 bucks for a six week class he had no intention of finishing. He did it, I'm convinced, just to be nice to me. To show me some Midwest kindness. To hang out.

"That's bad news, man," he said. "You heard the boss. She said it during the meeting."

Sandman was worried like all 25-year olds are worried. He's worried even though he has nothing to worry about; the one's with nothing to worry about are the one's who worry. He lives at home and he's about to go back to school in the fall, get his teaching license. His parents are cool and that's all that really matters. I'm the one who should be worrying, but I'm not worrying. Not about that, anyway.

"You heard the report --- all that shit about anticipation about assets, shit like that," he said. He hadn't even touched his food. I could never understand people who, when they worry, don't eat. You gotta eat. What the fuck? "We're the assets. The building, too."

"Eat," I say, and Stephanie, our waitress, comes over. God, she's gorgeous. I'd really like to ask her on a date, but I'm worried she'd say no, laugh, whatever. Rejection is something to worry about.

"You could get a job if you want," I say. "You'll be fine."

"I couldn't get a job in my field," he said. "There's nothing out there. Believe me. I know. I have people all though the city, and they say it's all fucked up out there."

"Then you'll have to get something that's not in your field," I say --- so incredibly simple, really, that he looks at me as if what I had just said makes absolutely no sense and all the sense in the world at the same time. That's what life is --- a pinch and pull between what makes sense and what doesn't. Always the battle, scenarios indescribable, like a strange sculpture made of iron that, even after you look at it for an hour, defies explanation. He looked at me, then, as if I'd asked him to sacrifice a small bird to a God.

"I could, yeah," he said, his voice thinning. He finally bites into his food. "I could get a job with the city's maintenance crew. They pay more anyway. It's good honest work. I'd be tired as shit but it's honest."

I waved that away. "Find a better reason than that. There's no one in the world who comes home exhausted, beat all to shit, from their job who's happy about it. That's just some ideal that looks good on paper. Poets believe that because it sounds good, that's all."

We eat for a while and I'm wishing Stephanie would come back so I could get a look at her face, the smoothness of her skin, that smile, bright like a gem caught in the rain. And she has a fine ass, too. When she skims by her table, I look over at Sandman and console him the best I can, tell him to just be positive, that situations always present themselves at just the right moment. He leans back and beckons Stephanie and he asks for ketchup and she runs over to the kitchen and brings back the bottle and she looks at his turkey sandwich and asks him if he's really going to put ketchup on a turkey sandwich and he said he is, yeah, it's something he likes to do.

"To each his own," she said --- nothing brilliant but goddamn perfect in its own way.

We start talking about music. We watch one of the three televisions on the wall and we talk a bit about sports. We get on the topic of compact discs and somehow I get around to telling him that he should own this album and that, and he looks excited. He always looks excited at the idea of something new. That's why I don't worry about him.