Flywheel Society: Assignment Seven (Letter)

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing today to set a few things straight regarding the group rental of rooms at your Red Roof Inn in Greensboro, North Carolina.   The specific incident I have in mind would have been for a period in early spring of 1999.  I suspect you raised an eyebrow when a group claiming to be the N.C. State Chess Club booked 45 rooms and the pool area for a formal.   You may recall the beginnings of a prickly doubt as you considered that there was very little chance any chess club in the world has 45 people in it.   That creeping suspicion was likely confirmed when you laid eyes on the ragtag group of all-white students who showed up with their dates.  A group in which not one man had the outward appearance of knowing what the Alekhine Defense was.

Let me stop right here and acknowledge the validity of your sage concerns.   In fact, this was not the N.C. State Chess Club.   Further, there wasn’t a single student from N.C. State present in this group.  That would make tracing the damage to your rooms back to our fraternity a bit too easy, wouldn’t you agree?   Surely you guessed we didn’t play chess, but you did you realize that even the school was a farce?  I’d like to think that was one more layer than you were able to perceive.

I suspect that when the music started playing in the courtyard that night, you were thrown back into a state of confusion.   The very worst DJ in the long and terrible history of DJs began spinning, and the choices he made (I can’t bring myself to call it a playlist, as that would seem too demeaning to the word) may have really pushed you back into thinking “maybe these guys DO play chess.”  I agree – no person who had ever listened to music would’ve chosen this DJ.   Let me assure you that we were as caught off guard by the performance as you were.   In fact, given the nature of my personal music collection at the time, which consisted of any acoustic band willing to put their music onto CD, the notion that my fraternity brothers would ask me to go grab my case logic from the car, and come “assist” the DJ was the worst of omens.  I guess when the pinnacle of his song selections was “Cotton Eye Joe,” even a Jackopierce CD or something by Jump, Little Children could be considered better party music.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for our ruse.  I hope that we didn’t do significant damage to your property, and that we didn’t also make a stay at your hotel impossible for any actual chess club who has subsequently tried to arrange a group outing.   Were you chosen for your low prices and extremely random location?   Yes, you were.  Were the hand-made Chess Club t-shirts I made inclusive of not-to-subtle sexual innuendos?  Yes, they were.  Were our subsequent covers at later formals even more creative and classic than the NC State Chess Club?   Let’s say that you were the launch pad for a terrific way to occupy the mind of many hilarious young men longing to see their inside jokes take on form out in the real world.

Finally, I just want to thank you for not following up in any way on the concerns you may have had about the weekend.   We haven’t ever heard a word from you, and certainly won’t after this long stretch of time.  Even so, I wanted to put to rest any doubt you had about what was really going on… just in case you still flash back to that night every time you hear Cotton  Eye Joe and wonder “were those chess kids really just a bunch of idiot frat boys from Duke?”  Indeed we were.   Indeed we were.

Very Sincerely,

Andy Murphy

Social Chair

Flywheel Society - Assignment Six (Poetry)

Iamb and Ku

I strolled amidst the gale-force winds and cold

Cheeks blush, red tinged, I sought an ancient soul

Once he’d held sway on topics varied wide

Sought I the place where Ku had gone to hide

“Ho! Ku!”  I broke the chill with greeting warm

“Awake! Return to your once glorious form!”

Then stirring came and crackling leaves were heard

“Who has,” it growled, “my pleasant sleep disturbed?”

And seeing me a smile crept to his lips

I feebly waived with frozen fingertips

“It’s been ages, Iamb

This place is quiet without you

I suffer silence.”

“The noise and fame are overrated sure

But people clap and clamor wanting more”

“Always has the world

chosen new ways over old

at its own peril.”

“I doubt the world will its own peril see

For rhyming is the one true poetry”

“My tired has deep roots

Nourished by reckless choices

I leave you now”

He sank once more beneath the brush and sighed

It seems the world has left old Ku behind

Flywheel Society - Assignment Four (Fiction)

The stench of stale beer clings to the painted white cinder block walls.  It haunted the common area and stairwells, too.   More bunker than dormitory, the thin, tall windows – one to a bedroom - appear better suited for an archer defending a keep than for letting any kind of warmth into the space.   I see the long rays of the sun peeking through those slits and creeping into the hallway out each door of the westward windows; yellow tendrils of some giant laying siege to this gothic castle.

Seated on the thin carpet, a young man sits playing three chords in succession on a poorly tuned guitar.   He is in the hallway between doors, head back against the block with eyes shut tight.  One of his cuticles is bleeding slightly as he bangs away at the steel strings with no pick.  I notice the intensity with which he plays and it occurs to me that he believes this song deserves radio play.  He is pathetic and painful to look at.

Utterly unaware of the world around him, he is singing mournfully and rather loudly.   There is no stirring in the dorm, no audience save the tendrils of light.   That lucky, earless light.

My first instinct is to wait for him to finish, lest I snap him out of this state in too jarring a fashion.   But after the song appears to repeat endlessly, hammering away on the unhappy theme of lost love, I decide that he will surely continue beyond my capacity to wait.   I am not known for my patience.

I stalk around the corner but hesitate before I reach him.   Will he recognize me?  I’m not really certain how this all works. 

“Stop that,” I command.  There is a quiet force in my words.  His eyes flash open and cheeks flush.  I’m standing over him now, not menacing but certainly invading his space.

He inhales with clear intent to berate me but stops short.   He’s staring.   Maybe he does recognize me?  Hard to say for sure.  Taking advantage of the pause, I press on. 

“I bet any friends you have left are exhausted from hearing that awful song.   Have you considered playing it in your room with the door closed instead?”

“Look, man, that’s a great song and it means a lot to me.   And I’ll have you know that nobody has told me anything bad about it.”  His voice is raised, tone defensive.   I shudder at the familiarity of it.

“Who do you sing it for?   Who’d you right it for?”  I accuse him.  

His eyes cast downward at the floor   I answer my own question with a wounding one.  “Has she heard it yet?”

He loses touch with the conversation to watch a few moments flash before him.

“No… she hasn’t heard it.”

“Would it make a difference if she did?” 

He sighs.   The anger is seeping out a bit, losing its hold as the sadness struggles for attention.

“Sure it would.   If she heard this song, she’d realize what she means to me.   She’d be touched by it.” 

He is genuine in this line of reasoning, and I find myself disgusted.

“Do you remember when you were in the sixth grade, and the clothes your parents bought you were completely out of fashion?”   He chuckles and nods, but his look quickly becomes a perplexed.  I can see him questioning how I know this. 

“One day some guy from another homeroom who you’d never seen before walked up to you and told you plainly that no one wears their socks pulled all the way up.  Then he walked away.   He didn’t ridicule you, or use that knowledge to wound you.   And when you looked around, it was suddenly so blatantly obvious?” 

“None of my friends said anything, and that guy comes out of nowhere and gives me some perspective.  But how do you know anything about…”

I cut him off, staring straight into his eyes.   “You will never get her back by being pathetic.  No girl dreams of someday reluctantly letting someone have her heart out of guilt. Be worthy of the love you seek.”

I turn on my heel, and rush back towards the stairs.   When I open the door, I’m look straight up at the ceiling.   My head rests on the pillow of a cushy sofa.  Several framed diplomas hang above me, and I wonder absently how long it takes to earn a PhD in psychology.

“Well that was a different approach.  Do you think it will make any difference to him?”

“Him?   Probably not, Andy.  There is no ‘him’ apart from your memories, of course.   But you weren’t really talking to ‘him,’ you were simply talking to yourself.  What did you tell ‘him’ anyway?”

Be worthy of the love you seek.

Flywheel Society - Assignment Three (Honesty)

I’m judging you right now.   Sizing you up.   Trying to find a weakness; anticipating you determining my own.   I’m already sparring with you in my mind, rehearsing arguments and claiming victory.  Years spent as an undersized and out-of-touch kid took a sense of humor and weaponized it.  You’re sleeping right now?  That’s cute.   Sleep is for people who don’t have a vicious mental theatre to attend.  While you’re sailing through some nameless weekday, I’m building alliances around you.   I’m ensuring my survival.

I’ve known people for 20 years or more, my dearest friends, who have never really seen the dark side of me.   The really ugly stuff seems to be saved for those who are closest of all.   Somewhere inside of me, my defensiveness and fear fester together into a thick, black poison.  Strangely, the more I fear losing you – the more awful I will be if I perceive a slight.   That’s right – it needn’t be real, it only has to feel real to me.  The wrath will be real enough for both of us.

It used to drive my mom crazy when my friend’s parents would tell her how wonderful I was.   It was no act – they simply hadn’t done anything to trigger me; to set me off.   But she knew about the me they would never see, the me who was so ruthless and awful.   For many years, that part of me seemed reserved almost exclusively for her.  Don’t question me, Mom.   Don’t you dare try to parent me.   I have these moments where I picture my own kids, my flesh and blood, speaking to my wife that way.  That won’t go well.   It won’t do to have any replicants of me face off with the prime.   I think the fabric of the universe would tear if something like that happened.   Best to hope that I can continue to change, or, perhaps the easier path: that they got their mom’s genes in this matter.    There’s something about children, though.   It’s like taking some of your ugly faults and stretching them over the 4’ tall frame of a kindergartener.   Suddenly your faults have a voice; and thin skin; and they operate completely independent of you.

My wife has a well of patience so deep that I have yet to plumb it in 10 years time.  She holds a mirror to me, showing me the ugliness of my very tone.   She is calmly refining me, enduring me along the way.  She treads so lightly on my weakness, testing the earth there to see if it is yet ready to bear weight.  She is a signpost to a better place.  Alas, my stubbornness prevents the asking of directions.

Flywheel Society - Assignment Two (Analogy)

All it took was one.   The long-standing tradition at my high school of the girls asking the guys to walk with them at graduation had no formal timelines, and so it seemed that when the first girl thought it time to ask, the rest would quickly follow lest the available pool of boys shrink uncomfortably small.  Wearing gowns that would make most brides-to-be envious, the women of my tiny prep school would be escorted by their chosen tuxedo-clad classmates down a grassy aisle in the aptly named "Graduation Grove."  A small orchestra would play.   Stunning, really.  Usually it would be senior year before that first young lady thought to break things open, but sometimes a girlfriend confident in the ongoing trajectory of her relationship would jump the gun and create the frenzy early.

My junior year I was like an small upstart nation who had just purchased a nuclear warhead on the black market and was awaiting the status now rightly deserved.  Young and undersized for my class, I had slogged through the brutal years between seventh grade and junior year: the braces, the haircut, the clothing choices, the profound lack of athleticism.  But now I was coming into my own and felt that I was poised to launch from the middling second tier into the truly popular group.   Somehow I had shaken off the near-fatal misstep of asking out a girl who had been dating our mutual classmate for years (was she really so kind as to not spread that information and destroy me?).   I had yet to attend a single social event with anyone from the popular group, but it seemed like any minute, the phone would ring (my wife would later explain to me that in high school the phone never rings; you hear about a party and just go).  I had closed the gap in average height for our class and now weighed over 100 pounds (but just barely).  My potential was limitless.

Sir, the news just hit the wire, within the hour, the whole world will know we've got the bomb.  "Excellent.   They won't have the luxury of ignoring us any longer, will they?"

She walked up to me in a calm moment before the first bell.  Someone from my own caste; someone undesirable in my plans to social escalation.  It didn't occur to me then, but this was probably a well-rehearsed moment for her.   A decision which had required a great deal of that, perhaps some discussion with friends.  There may have been courage involved.  No small talk, just straight to the point.  "Andy, would you walk with me at graduation?"

I was in shock; frozen for a brief moment before quickly recovering and answering in a brutal and ungracious way, "Oh WOW, that's starting already?"   Not an answer.  That's not an answer.   I changed the subject, but the real one stood over us like a dense cloud until the bell rang and the five-minute timer until the next bell, burned into our subconscious over five years, began ticking - and sending us in opposite directions.

Sir, we've received a message following our press release about the new bomb.   "Excellent, I assume the Americans have invited us to join the G20, or perhaps take a permanent seat on the UN Security Council?"   Well, sir, actually.... it's an invitation to attend a summit on shipping lane security.   From a junior congressman.   Out of Rhode Island.

As I saw it, ignoring this request - if possible - through the summer would mean some sort of reset.   The girl would grow impatient or get the hint, and I would be free to ascend and take my rightful place: arm in arm with the prom queen or, at worst, one of her ilk.

Sir, I'm afraid I have more bad news.  The bomb was a fake.   We've.... we've be fooled, sir.  "Very well, very well.   Let the good people of Rhode Island know that I've always hated piracy."

Flywheel Society - Assignment One (Memoir)

They were mature trees – tall and grand enough to shade but without creating a foreboding darkness.  The woods at the bottom of the hill: where I spent countless hours as a kid, accountable only to those trees and my friends.  Our house was near the top of the long hill which lead down to the woods.   Once, my sister managed to get the parking break undone on the family car, with me inside as well, and I’m positive we’d have buried that car in the woods if Dad hadn't raced outside in time to stop us rolling.  He has zero memory of the event, which is unnerving since he can remember everything and everyone.

I spent all the time in those woods I could as a kid.   They were so close to home, and yet so unlike everything else around.   A creek ran down the middle of the woods, which rose steeply away from either bank.   At one end of the woods, where the subdivision was looming overhead, the creek vanished into a giant drain pipe.   We wouldn’t have to duck to walk into this pipe, but the pitch black married up with spider webs were enough to keep us out of there.   That and the fact that we sensed it would be against the rules to go into a drainage pipe, and we always followed the rules.

There were rocks and railroad ties aplenty in the woods; and so we had rock and railroad tie forts.  There never seemed to be any incursions into the woods which would require a fort, but preparation is always the key to repelling a large invading force.    Almost every rock in the creek had the look of a turtle.   In fact, if a turtle had a mind to hide, these woods would’ve been the perfect place to blend in.   That was small consolation to the 8-year-old boys seeking pets in vain, but it’s a fact.

I’m not sure if John Lewis was ever in these woods with me.   I would testify that he was, but he didn’t live close and I can’t say for a fact that we ever spent time together outside of school or baseball, not even once.  But certainly he was there.   John was the perfect kind of friend for me.   He was tough, having grown up with no fingers on his left hand except a partial thumb made of a hip-bone chip that doctors had inserted there shortly after his birth.  My first day of second grade I spent watching that hand and nothing else, since it sat at the desk in front of mine and to the side, along with John.   Since literally nothing came easily to John, he was resolute.   I was a wimp – younger and smaller than everyone around, so resolute fit with me very well.   Together we could rule the woods.

Those woods could contain our fun for days.   They allowed us to be boys.   We could go to the woods without any supervision or schedules, without plans or permission.   They were huge and dangerous and dark.  They went on in every direction without ending.  They were tiny, and safe, and close, and if I told you exactly where they were you wouldn’t be able to find them because they aren’t really woods.   They’re a tiny strip of trees, left untouched by the housing development only because the water runoff needed someplace to go, and a “wildlife preserve area” is good political cover for an alderman approving a golf course.   I’m having a hard time even locating them on an aerial map now, because you can’t zoom in enough to see them.   My how they loom large in my foggy memories of 1988.