Robert Colpitts

Faith has this thing on her wrist; it is a bracelet.  Where is she going with this instrument of passion?  To what individual will she display her trinket?  Not I.  I am not in this story.  I won’t meet her, talk to her, sleep with her, or yell at her (or she at me). 

Faith is an attractive woman.  Attractive women don’t go places that many people do.  They don’t go to pizza shops, they don’t take subways late at night, and they don’t sit alone anywhere but parks or beaches.  This may or may not be true for every attractive woman, but, in this case, I have to come up with something for Faith to do, and it makes sense that I do this thing to the best of my abilities if you know what I mean.

It is dark.  The moon is full.  The bracelet shines.  Faith is on her way to the curb in front of her closet-sized apartment.  She dare not walk to the subway, because she is wearing heels and a tight skirt.  Thankfully, she chose the closet she lives in for a reason; she only has to walk 3 feet from the front door of her building and a cab will appear to take her to her destination.  This is why, largely, regular old dudes like me who live up in the hinterlands see mostly tired old men on the subway late at night.

Faith gets in a cab, but you leave me to go around the corner where we have been spying on her and enter her apartment.  I have a key to it–don’t ask me where I got it–and you enter it.  It is on the fourth floor; don’t get lost.  4C.  Go in there.  That’s right.  Look around.  Do you see the clothes everywhere?  Want to know where her bathroom is?  Her bathroom is back in the hallway behind you.  She doesn’t have anything in her apartment but her laptop, which you should not steal, and, of course, dirty clothes.  I don’t care if you steal them or not; she doesn’t wear the same thing twice anyway. 

Come back outside now, and make sure you lock the door, and see if you can find the bathroom in the hallway on your way out.  I’m going to pass the narration back to the third person, so just tap me on the shoulder when you get here.

Faith has now arrived.  It is in a grimy hole somewhere deep, and dark, and scary–exactly the place that all these kids’ parents would tell them to steer away from.  It is not Disneyland.  And, yet, it is Disneyland, because every speck of chipped paint has been carefully attuned to make people chipper. 

Oh, I’m glad you are back.  I’d like to go and get some pizza or some inexpensive Indian food if you don’t mind.  Would you like to come with me?  Faith is carrying on somewhere, and she won’t be back until it is clear that she is protected by something to hide her away until the perfect thingy takes her out of her closet sized rip-off into something over here or over there that the dude could obviously afford better.  I do feel sorry, though, because she cannot walk into that ratty donut shop–she’s scared. 

Faith tells someone she resents this presentation of her.  I want to tell her that I only did it to see if there are fewer spelling mistakes in a longer piece of text like this, but I promised you I wouldn’t talk to her in this story, so she can go have her fun, and I’ll have mine.  Mine will last longer.

“One thing I learned yesterday,” says Faith, “is that the alphabet is responsible for the oppression of women.  It works like this:  the alphabet existed at the same time as men’s oppression of women.  In fact, as far as we can tell with the evidence we have, oppression only exists when there is writing.  A female person told me this.  I wanted to ask her if she got that from her hypnotist.  She went on: once men learned to categorize things with the alphabet, they couldn’t stop, and the spectre of oppression and white male power came into being (some time in-between the dinosaurs and 2050 maybe).  It does not have anything to do with the fact that the woman in question was completely dependent upon her loving father until she was the grand old age of 45 (or something), who, at the time of his death, declared publicly that she ‘now had to learn to make decisions on her own (he died a bug’s death).’  The woman in question also let me know that she was a feminist, and then this other woman, this different one, nice-enough, who was right before me, jumped on the bandwagon, and said that women passed along an oral culture, implying, somehow, that writing is oppressive, but speaking is liberating.  Indeed, the woman who told me about the alphabet (the first one) told me that only one half of the brain is responsible for the oppression of people, and it just so happened that men used this part of the brain more, but women used the other part of the brain more, which made it simply delicious to justify the fact that she is effectively a moron, so why not say that because I am a woman, and I feel like a moron, that all women are like me, and it is because we all love only our right brain.  I feel like a moron right now.  In fact, although I did quite well in calculus, and I think her father’s book is deplorably easy to understand, I’d rather jump on the bandwagon, sell my rational and logical talents, and rub my clitoris and tell you how I’m feeling all day long with a kind of grunting ca-caw like oral culture transmission–or, if I develop it soon enough, my picture-oriented telepathic abilities–then read another newspaper.  She also held, in her hand, this odd electronic device, which she talked about, and I didn’t have the words to describe it, because I had given them up (how quickly the poison sorts one out!), but it had pictures and stuff and I could check my oppressive email and the oppressive Facebook.  She also struggled a lot, at the same time that the alphabet was oppressing all the women, with the fact that at her dapper, plucky age, she was having a tough time conceiving.  As it turns out, white women should be able to have babies whenever they want, but, even after years of trying, they must never consider adopting, because adoption is for the ‘others.’  White feminists should rather take advantage of the health care system that is far less oppressive than the alphabet, and while they are spending thousands and thousands of dollars to have their own child, they can make a movie called “Connected” and tell everyone the story of their life while saying, ‘Computers and web sites are cool, and I think they are going to save the world, and, oh, remember that men are evil because they created the alphabet, and do you remember that there are wars, the mean alphabet wielding men created that too, no woman in her ‘right’ mind’ — get it! — ‘would make those things.’  She ended her time with me by saying, ‘Imagine the world if we all had computers,’ and I thought, really, it makes more sense to give refugees in Somalia shelter and food than it does to give them computers.  I wanted to mention that you also needed electricity to have computers, and not everyone had that, so it would probably be better for people to have some electricity, and perhaps they would use that for heat and phones before they needed computers, and all we women who want another child should adopt a child since there are millions of children who are orphans, but I think that it would make her feel sad or something, so I didn’t mention it, although I did mention that the internet was a lot like a supermarket these days in that we are provided with a selection, but we still must make a choice.  I cited, as an example, the fact that her film about connectivity kind of mentioned nuclear bombs, but not napalm; kind of mentioned web-like connections in the world, but did not see it in our nervous system; kind of did a feminist thing with the whole memory in-and-out thing, but spoke (kind of) positively of only one woman; and kind of mentioned being good at the end, but never mentioned her own privilege.  Anyway, I’m being kind of snotty here, I feel a little like a spoiled teenage girl, so I’m going to get my vibrator and go masturbate.  Since writing is so bad, I’m going to read a book while I do it, because being bad makes me so fucking horny man.”

I submit, for the record, evidence of, consisting of, providing the message for, the alphabet.  May it always dominate and oppress women everywhere!

We’re sitting on the beach; we are not in the twilight of our childhood.  I’m holding Faith’s hand, because, well, I can–she’s dead.  She thinks it’s funny that I tell people that.  We are uncomfortably close to the boardwalk that spans the length of the coastline–there are pieces of glass, dirty food containers, and weeds surrounding our beach blanket(s).  Faith leans over and whispers in my ear.  Faith points out a woman who is drying herself with her dog and dragging a towel behind her on a leash.  Faith’s cold lips clip the fuzz on my ear making me shiver with delight.  The moment is rife with manliness, and I should respond with a kiss, but my arm is frozen to the earth, and my right ear hears a song and I turn.

The song emanates from the lips of the most attractive old drag queen this side of Neptune.  She reminds me of my old theatre history professor: her wrinkled face and heavy frown outline her old, wise, hurt, intelligent eyes.  In a thrilling show of feminine self-control, she walks without letting the heels of her shoes penetrate the sand.   I feel as if somehow I have let her down by being born, yet again, a generation too late.  Her song, raspy and slow, is filled with both joy and the sourness you get when the world tries to kill you with their thoughts every hour of every day.  Perhaps she even smokes too much–I don’t know.  It is not until she is far off in the distance that I realize Faith is asleep, and I am, once again, alone with my thoughts.

What makes one man sit quietly alone, see what he sees, is content with most of it, and still loves the world despite its many manifestations of reluctance towards him, while another man never has a moment’s peace, is constantly among men and women, flora and fauna, life and love, peaches and cream, is accepted and desired by everyone to be everywhere, and yet cannot find a moment’s peace or quiet love inside of it all?  Can it really be so that the world is MOSTLY confused and unhappy, and that if you come to a place of calm acceptance in your life, even of not being desired or wanted by the human race, that you can find more peace than he who is most loved by all?  Does the love of man keep us alive, or does the love of man percolate our confusion?  I should think, most solemnly, that people are afraid of what they will hear if they end their striving for life.  After all, one does not have to try and live–it is there with or without your consent.

As should be expected, Faith does not wake up.  She is lying on her side, with her right leg pulled up, her left leg out.  She is clutching at the top of the blanket(s), snoring like a kitten with half a mewl.  Unlike the drag queen, Faith does not tightly control her femininity–I want to like the fact that I have full view of her half naked body, but she sneezes, and her skin has sand on it, and I hear the sound of a truck honking from somewhere, and my bathing suit is dry, riding, and uncomfortable, so I turn my gaze wondering what I will gaze upon next.

It is my foot.  It is sandy, and I feel how dry and warm it is with the sand on it.  I rub the sand off of it, bit by bit, loving the sensation of this sand here, that sand there, it all mingling, dry sand on dry flesh, my hand slightly damp, but by no means wet.  I almost don’t want all the sand off of my foot, so I slow down, and somehow fall into a hazy pause where only the feeling of deadness and energy courses through me–not a thought nor an emotion swells to disturb the depth of this daze.  I somehow feel completely what it means to have a foot–this foot here–and I slowly wiggle it, massage it, and slap it around.  I stretch my legs out and I wiggle my toes and try to bury my feet in the sand, and then pull them out again, and bury them again faster, and the next time I take them out, and kick sand up as high as I can.  I lean forward, pull my legs under me, get on my knees, and start to use my hands to build a wall of sand to protect Faith and I from the trash that surrounds us.  Then I think it is rude to not invite the trash into the process–after all, it didn’t ask to be trash, some jerk just made them that way–so they become part of the wall.  As I am noticing that the deeper you dig, the wetter the sand gets…

I feel arms come from behind me and embrace me.  Three loving kisses punctuate my cheek, and I am still.  I grab the arms that surround me, and a tender bittersweet emotion arises in my chest.  Why do corpses have a way of coming back to hug you just as you wish to forgive them?

There he is, standing on the pier, gazing out at the other side of life.  He wonders where the strand of fate that drew him would end.  There has been an end to struggling in his life, but still, his chest remains heavy and empty.  His boot stands soggy on the shining wood.  He turns around–no one is watching.  At home, no one waits.  Daylight persistence gathers.  A strum alone is not as sweet; no, not like smiles, or happy girls. 

Then Faith comes up and pushes him in the water.  The end.

Faith, so named, for no one believes her, steps out onto the verandah, breathes in the fresh morning air, and wonders if it all is worth training for.  Her clients will see her in a few hours, will be chattering away in anticipation of the day’s journey as she enters the grassy space they call their holy space, and will wildly joke about and question the daily life of strawberries.  Faith’s sweet morning breath dies heavily with the thought. 

Someone approaches.  It seems her day is to start earlier than anticipated.  Cautiously, Faith adopts of a worldly face.  Faith recognizes her mother.

“Just another day, isn’t it Faith?” asks Mom.

Faith brandishes a smile, and nods.  “The most important lesson I learned from you is that it means close to nothing to be a mother.  How do I teach these women who are here for giggling and jiggling that in 20 years half of them will be divorced, unable to find work, and living off the fat of some government agency designed only keep them dead?”

Faith’s mother says, “They are too cute and they laugh too much.”

Faith nods.  They both soberly stare into the sun.

Faith is doing, like, one of those, um, things that you do when you’re, like, angry, I think you call them, pushups, but, um, she is doing, like, one of them.  It is because her arms are weak today, um, due to the–

**We interrupt this story to admit I left my tea in the microwave.**

Faith, daring as she is, darling girl, does not want to wear a hat today.  She feels that she is peachier without one. 

%%I like Faith better when she is like this.%%

Faith decides to teach a woman how to stop being so god-awful passive all the fucking time:  “You think it’s your nature!” she screams.  “It is not the nature of woman to sit there like so much ink!”

^^Sometimes she bakes cookies.^^

I’m only doing this because I want some fresh cookies, and I want coconut in them, she thinks.  She doesn’t know who you are, and she is not thankful you are reading this, even though she is well aware of you.  And don’t wait around for cookies, because you cannot eat virtual cookies.

@@One last thing.  Faith doesn’t need to know the first, the last, or the middle, before she begins.  She just does it.@@

FEAR does not STOP her.