Me vs. Hamlet

Dear Readers,

Here's another story I wrote in the fall of 2004 at EAC:

Me vs. Hamlet

My Mom’s a fat old lady that sits in a chair all day. Literally, all day, she sits there, in the chair, watching TV. Sometimes she talks on the phone forever with this lady who’s got nothing better to do than talk with my Mom about nothing for hours at a time. I swear, both of those females have nothing to do. They must gossip. Yeah, my Mom’s a messed up person. And she lives in a messed up house. I should know. I live there too.

I don’t mean to be insulting towards the woman who gave birth to me. She did go through all that pain associated with childbirth to give me life. (A pain I can never really understand ‘cause I’m a man. How many times have women told me that?) But that pain does have to be appreciated. She went through all the pain of childbirth and she breastfed me, and that’s giving me a part of herself in a very physical motherly nurturing way and it’s really a romantic thing I guess. So I don’t mean to be insulting about Mom, but I also try to be an honest person. She really is lazy and she really does sit around the house all day and she really does weigh over two hundred and fifty pounds. Ask anyone who knows her.

But the bad thing is I not only have a problem with my Mom, I have a problem with women in general. Like, women everywhere, I got a problem with them. One of my favorite quotes from Hamlet is that pretty famous line in his first soliloquy where Hamlet’s all mad at his mother for re-marrying so quick after Hamlet Senior dies. He says, “Frailty thy name is woman”. Yep, that pretty much describes womankind for me. Women are frail. They’re frail, weak and they change their minds too much. They’re all messed up. I’m thirty years old, so I’ve been around ‘em along time. So I should know just as much about women as any other thirty year old man, right? If not more? I’m pretty smart. I consider myself to be educated. I graduated college. I’m may not be Sigmund Freud; I don’t know how to professionally psychoanalyze people, but I’ve hung around this planet for thirty years so I ought to know thirty years worth of stuff, right?

Right.

Back to Shakespeare. Shakespeare was the greatest writer who ever lived, as far as I and a bunch of other really smart people are concerned. Like I said, that Hamlet really knew what he was talking about when he said, “Frailty, thy name is woman.” A lot of people think that Hamlet was too whiny. And you know what? I agree with them. I do. I do think Hamlet was basically a snot-nose, man, a grade-A whiner. I mean, I can understand him being miffed about his father dying; you’ve got to go through a mourning process when there’s a death in the family, but still, Prince Hamlet just went on and on and on about how much life sucked. Who wants to go see a play about a guy whose life sucks and he’s complaining about it the whole time? People got enough problems on their own. They wanna see a play or a movie about people who overcome problems and get married at the end. With the cake and the rice-throwing and all the dancing. The hours and hours of dancing. You have to have the dancing. If you want to make a movie, you got to have the dancing. And in there somewhere, in this dream movie, there’d be a montage of the bride getting ready for the wedding at a hair salon and the stylist tries all kinds of different hairstyles, or the chick would be standing in front of a full-length mirror (that always looks good on film, people looking in mirrors) trying on different bracelets or necklaces with her girlfriends standing around giving their fashion opinions in their feminine way. And of course some new pop song would be playing while the bride is getting ready and the pop song is about love and of course it’s about love, love, love, love, love. It has to be about love. That’s what people want to see when they go to the movies. Love, love, love, love, love.

But then there’s the question of artistic integrity. Maybe real art isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s not supposed to have a happy ending. Maybe real art is supposed to be just like your life. Exactly like your life. So realistic and so like your life, in fact, that it’s not even entertaining, because you live it everyday and you know what’s going to happen. Maybe I’m on to something. Maybe the truest form of art is exactly what you’re doing right now. Yeah, I think that’s true art. But it’s so depressing nobody wants to pay for it. And who would market it? Not me.

Back to Shakespeare. In any case, Hamlet’s established as a classic. We know that. So I’m not questioning its literary merit; I know it’s a brilliant piece of writing. Like I said, Shakespeare’s the biggest thing around. The next time you’re lying on the leather couch playing that word association game where the psychiatrist says a word or a phrase and then you say the first word that pops into your head (you know that game?) and the psychiatrist says “great writing,” you should say “Shakespeare”. “Shakespeare” goes with “great writing,” OK? They say there’s no right or wrong answer in that game, but they only say that because they think you’re crazy and they don’t want to upset you by telling you that you did something wrong. See, when they say, “children”, and you say, “knives”, they’ll say, “Yeah, that was good. You’re making real progress. I think we’re really close to getting through your inner conflict.” And when they say that they’ll smile pleasantly and give a sincere, encouraging nod. They want to keep you as a paying customer, you understand. They run a business. But I’m here to tell you that there are right and wrong answers in that game, and the right answer to “great writing” is “Shakespeare.”

Again, I’m not challenging Hamlet’s literary prowess. What I’m questioning is whether Hamlet’s a sissy or not. I mean, he was going through a rough time with the death of his father and stuff, but he had that hot babe, Ophelia, ready to get into his pants! He had Ophelia, man! Ophelia! I don’t care what the situation is: If Ophelia was all over me, I’d have nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about, man. I’d have a job. I’d have Ophelia back at home, fixing up some dinner, talking with Mom in the recliner. It’d be great. I can see the scene now:

Mom: Ophelia, Ophelia, get me the Cheetoes!
Ophelia: Get ‘em yourself, you old hag!

And Mom would probably call her a shorter, easier name to say, like Ophie:

Mom: Ophie, Ophie, I said go get me the Cheetos!
Ophelia: And I said get ‘em yourself!

Oh, and Ophelia would still talk in that Shakespeare language, so it’d be like:

Mom: Ophie, Ophie, for the last time, get me the Cheetos!
Ophelia: Nay, I’ll refrain from retrieving, acorn!

Ha, ha, ha. They’d both be stuck in the house all day fighting. Mom would sit in her chair all day, yelling, while Ophelia would fix dinner and clean the house up. And she’d wear one of those old Victorian dresses all time, you know with a corset and a stiff white collar that sticks out all funny. And she’d always have her hair up and wear that white makeup.

Then I’d get home from work, a hard day of hammering and drilling and sweating, with dirt beneath my fingernails, wearing dirty blue jeans and an old T-shirt, or maybe I’d even be wearing overalls. So I’d enter the stage and it would go like this:

Me: Ah…I’m back.
Ophelia: Hath my blessed husband been so long a-working
That blisters hath sprouted upon thy palms?
O let me tenderly rub them, and anoint
Thee with scented oils from the Orient!
Me: That’s right baby. [They smooch]
Ophelia: O my love- thy kisses to me are like the heavenly
Feathers fluttering upon my receiving lips!
O how my bosom yearns for thine embrace,
With a fire only thy love can satisfy.
Me: Dang I like that Shakespeare talk. [They smooch]
Mom: Cut it with the corny stuff, Ophie, and stop kissing my son! And get me
the Cheetos!

Here I am fantasizing about Ophelia, a fictional character. I’m a loser. I still live with my Mom. I have a point, though. I’d treat Ophelia 1,000 times better than Hamlet ever did. 1,000 times better! Hamlet was a woman! Did you hear that, Hamlet? I said you’re a woman! I challenge you to a duel, Prince Hamlet! A duel for the hand of Ophelia in marriage!

A Childhood Memory and My Favorite Movie

Dear Readers,

This is a short story I wrote in a creative writing class at Eastern Arizona College in the fall of 2004.

A Childhood Memory and My Favorite Movie

I think you can figure out about a person by the way they treat animals.

One of the things I remember pretty clearly is something that happened to me in second grade. Our class had a pet hamster. Harry the hamster. I think the teacher named him. Students would take turns feeding him, playing with him, and other stuff like that. The teacher said we could learn from the hamster and he would be sort of our class mascot.

Most everybody liked Harry, but I remember there was this one kid that shook Harry’s cage. We were all busy taking a test or doing some kind of work where we were supposed to be quiet. Then that kid gets up, doesn’t say anything, walks over there, grabs the cage, and shakes it. It didn’t make any sense. Maybe he was trying to get attention, but it didn’t make any sense. I mean, what could motivate a person to do a thing like that? That’s just a horrible, horrible thing if you ask me. But besides that kid, most everyone was nice to Harry. Yeah, everybody besides that one kid liked him, but they liked him at different levels. I loved him. Maybe that’s cheesy, I don’t know, but there’s nobody else here; so, I feel comfortable telling you that. Yeah, I feel comfortable saying that I loved Harry. I loved Harry. I loved Harry.

This might seem strange to you. But, I’m telling you, if I have any idea what love really is, I would have to say that I know what it is because of Harry.

I still love him, in a way. Every chance I got I was over there watching him run on his wheel or drink his water. I loved the way he moved around his cage and crawled around his tubes and scooted his bedding around. Mostly he just slept, but I would even watch him sleep, with his stomach slowly going up and down. And I even stayed inside during recess sometimes so I could be with the hamster more. The teacher said it was OK if I stayed in as long as I cleaned his cage and behaved myself.

It must seem strange to you that I’m going on like this. Maybe you think I’m exaggerating just to get attention or to make everything seem cooler than it really is or maybe you think I’m saying all this just so I sound like an interesting person. Or a person that needs help and needs people around him to listen to him and help him.

Well I don’t care what you’re thinking. I know what my real feelings are. I know how I felt at the time. I don’t care if you think I’m lying.

I loved Harry.

So one day I got to class and the hamster was gone. His cage was gone, too. I asked the teacher where Harry was. The teacher said Harry died. I asked her of what. She said old age. I asked why he died and she just said because he was old. I remember I wanted a better answer so I asked her why again and she said something like, “that’s just what animals do when they’re old. They die.”

Of course the teacher didn’t tell me anything new. Of course I already knew that everything dies when it gets old. My father’s gonna die. My mother’s gonna die. Everyone I know is going to die. I’m gonna die. You’re gonna die. I understand all that. Well that’s the end of the story. That’s all there is to it. It’s simple, really. I loved Harry. He died. End of story.

So maybe that’s an important part of my life. I don’t know. I’ll tell you another thing about me.

There’s this movie called Taxi Driver I like. I’ve watched it more than a hundred times. It’s about this guy named Travis who was in the Vietnam War and he lives by himself in New York City. He gets a job as a taxi cab driver and he mostly drives around places where there’s drunks, prostitutes, homeless people, and that kind of thing. And he works the night shift.

Then one day Travis meets this girl he falls in love with. He obsesses over her and asks her out to lunch and they go on a few dates but Travis is kind of crazy and some other stuff happens and she dumps him.

Well, a lot of stuff happens in the movie, it would take too long to tell you the whole thing, but the important part and one of the coolest parts is Travis starts buying guns. Yeah, he gets a bunch of guns from this guy who sells them illegally. One of the guns he straps to his forearm and hides it under his sleeve and he rigs up this mechanism where he flicks his arm out and the gun comes out really fast and there’s a bunch of scenes where he’s standing in front of the mirror, practicing pulling his guns out. Maybe you’ve heard the line, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? I don’t see anybody else here; you must be talkin’ to me.” Well he says that while he’s standing in front of that mirror in his apartment, getting his guns out.

He goes through this thing, too, this mental state, where he starts exercising a bunch and he gives himself a Mohawk, and he plans to kill this one guy running for mayor.

But anyway, the movie goes on and Travis meets up with this young prostitute and they become friends in a weird sort of way. He wants to get her out of the prostitute life and he gets mixed up with her pimp and some of the other gangster-type guys around her. Near the end of the movie Travis just kills a bunch of them. Shoots them. Stabs them some. It’s a pretty violent part. You should watch it.

I love that movie. It’s like the whole time he never gets out of the city. It’s around him all the time, the darkness, the crime, the tall buildings, the city noises, and he can’t get away from it. It’s around him all the time and he can’t get away from it. I don’t know exactly what the movie means, but I understand the feeling I get when I watch that movie. It’s such a cool feeling, and that’s why I watch it so much. I’m gonna watch it again tonight.

Maybe someday I’ll stop watching that movie. I think that would help me clean up my life and I think it would help me be a gentler person. But, I just have to watch it. I don’t feel right if I go too long without watching it.

What do you think? Do you think I should stop watching the movie?

Cafeteria Observations

The Fork:

The other day in the cafeteria I was staring at a fork for a while. It was metal. It had some spaghetti sauce on it. At length, I wondered if the fork was in my hand or if I was wrapped around the fork. After much staring, I came to no conclusion and started eating again.

The Chair:

While I ate I sat in a chair. It was wooden. It was painted blue. Now I imagined that there were people in the chair. Small people. Small people with giant biceps, necks, and pectorals, praying to their own muscles. For in their muscles they found hope. I continued sitting.

The Floor:

Looking downward I saw the floor. It was gray. My shoes were resting on it. Under the floor, I fancied, monsters waited to snatch me and make me drink lava. “I don’t want to drink lava!” I yelled.

The Collapse:

What do I know about the fork and the chair and the floor? And what do I know but death and death and death and death?

The Meaning of All Existence

To the Deists

The Meaning of All Existence
is not to be found in the flowing of a brook
nor in the blooming of a tree in spring,
nor yet in the photogenic moment the sun
descends beneath the honey-colored horizon.
The Meaning of All Existence
Is absent from the rhythms of animal life.

Nature does not speak English.

Inside Books Written By Dogs With Horns

Inside books written by dogs
with horns my father is insulted,
my dead human father, a King.
(though he’s not specifically mentioned,
these books must be talking about Dad.)

The dogs that write the books lurk beneath-
they snarl, they sharpen their horns
on darkened walls in basements – the horned
beasts rendezvous in my cellar,
where once murky apricots filled glass jars,
where once I was a happy child
on a warm, slow afternoon, looking
through grandmother’s things-

The dogs with horns are in dungeons
of their own creation- they are
beneath me as I write to you -
scratching out wicked incantations
in their doggy-sized notebooks -
assembling a printing press -
distributing pamphlets among the
animal kingdom, publishing occultism,
animalism. I hear them conspiring, biting,
growling, feeding on the weak among them,
I hear them talking in barks.
My heart and throat tighten, the skeleton
inside my body trembles -
the sound of their claws scraping
against the concrete floor -
the weight of their language.

On the Internet

Get on the Internet and
click on whatever.
Type in “cool stuff”
or “funny stuff” and click
on whatever you want
and keep clicking and clicking
and clicking and clicking and
you’ll see pets dressed up
like people. You’ll play games
with strangers. You’ll
keep clicking and
eventually you’ll see
people die in real life.