[The following is a transcript, sadly partial, of a dialogue between two obscure men, Jotan Whitman and Matcha Bailey. The original conversation took place at an institution of higher learning, and the sides of each man's perspective were posted upon a sort of lightbox. The recorded words of Bailey may exist somewhere else in energy records. We present the Whitman sections and hope you will find them illuminating.—Ed.]
So Matcha, how have the scenic vistas of the Badlands sculpted your soul? Is your soul hard like marble, or squishy like putty? Can you sculpt with putty? Or do you just glue with it? In that case I hope your soul is neither like putty nor like grout.
Matcha remarks on his soul and the Badlands, and my recent acquistion.
It's true, I was pretty much soulless all the way through high school and then Carleton. I wish I could say it "budded softly" or "slowly unfurled" like in Joycean prose, but really, here's the true story. Last year I went to the old used bookstore in the town in which I was later employed as a gas station customer service representative of the people, and I picked up a dog-eared, chewed-on soul from the discount bin. I don't really want to talk about it. It gets me through the long nights. An entirely adequate soul. Anyway. Whatever. Matcha, where did you learn to be so piercingly trenchant in your commentary?
Matcha provides trenchant commentary, with emphasis on gas stations.
Isn't that the problem — a confluence of too many secondhand souls. Yes, I feel the gas station gives me some sort of working class street cred. At least I've had plenty of contact with cigarettes, but unfortunately my gas station was a rather chaste one, lacking in alcohol and pornography. Sad! The gas station I worked at Previously (in high school) did have alcohol, such as Mike's Hard Lemonade, and also what I think were 40s, although I didn't know what they were at the time. This Native American guy with bloodshot eyes and flannels would come in and buy like four at a time, and my attempts to draw him into conversation (What's not to like about "Hey," and "Have a good night?") never inspired him to elaborate on his life story.
Matcha reminisces about short stories past and bemoans his street cred-less-ness.
What was the title of the short story collection? Don't leave me (us) hanging like that! Hopefully reading it won't be like reading The Sun Also Rises, which compelled me to solitary imbibement on more than one occasion. I wish one could be as trenchant in the temporary classroom situation as in the pub or bar, and no nonsense and tempermental as well. I don't know if working at the gas station helped my personal street cred in my few substitute teaching gigs, mainly because I ran into a couple of my students in said gas station. Although really that provided a more relaxed venue of conversation, and I got to see them as they more naturally were, rather than "the annoying kids who don't want to be in class." More naturally they were like most everyone else who came into the gas station. They bought beef jerky; they spoke in low manly grunts; they talked about fishing. Perhaps, they trimmed trees.
Matcha paints the South Dakotan scene, brainstorms about 'sub,' and drops reference to Catcher.
I like that you have a ritual for being at the Badlands. I read a book when I was young about a class that hates their substitute teacher, and the recurring phrase was "Sink the sub!" Which metaphor I didn't really go for. Or maybe I just was too much on the side of the authorities and not sympathetic to stupid kids. Let me tell you about trimming trees -- it's a booming business for the pothead community. The adults I saw trucking around with high schoolers down to the Cities in their pickups definitely looked like grownup stoners. People need their trees trimmed so the trees don't reclaim the earth like in some anarchic Greenpeace tract. And they're willing to pay a decent amount to prevent that. Oh, Catcher in the Rye. Your rambling paragraphs strike so many chords! What is your favorite part you remember from our dear Mr. Salinger's work? And, by the way, do you begrudge him his solitude and artistic inactivity much like my friend Browning does Watterson his? (I swear those last words make sense...to me...)
Drugs, trees, and high school friends. The providence of memorization in oubliette-esque situations.
That's funny, my first encounter with Catcher came from a girl who did part of it as a speech, who was in a summer camp theater class with me. I don't remember which part except that his brother, baseball glove, and bloody hand were mentioned. My dad has also mentioned the reports of the benefits of knowing things by heart: specifically prayers, specifically in the midst of trench warfare-inspired terror. I hope you take up a Herculean task such as memorizing all the Sonnets, or Moby-Dick, or Finnegans Wake.
Matcha affirms the mediocre and wraps it up.
Delightful indeed! Back to the Rueb!
The two scalliwags retire.
