Thoughts.com

I loved my mother and I do to this day. I know that she loved me, too. I still go on Mother's Day and her birthday – when I'm able – to see her at Peaceful Heights cemetery although it's a long walk from the gate down to the back of the property. The little, concrete, memorial marker above her reads, 'Plot T-68' and there's no vase in the ground for flowers so I clean off some of the weeds and leave the flowers on the dirt.

I know she loved me because, well, I was a bit of a 'spirited' kid; to bring me into line, she became a strict disciplinarian. I still have the scars to show for it but most of them are fading now. No, what I became was not her fault. She probably should have disciplined me more.

We lived in a small, post-war, pre-fab cottage. Basically, with all the soldiers coming home and the baby-boom starting, they made those things of cardboard, dug a hole for a basement and dropped the house on it. That house was old and, to be honest, most things didn't work anymore: the rats had eaten through a lot of the wiring so we only had about two working outlets; the fridge – the original one - rattled and clanked when it did anything at all; and the pipes were rotten so the water came out red and stained all the sinks. No, we didn't have any hot water. Still, it was my home and I liked it.

Of course, the demographics had changed over the intervening decades and most of the other families on the street were blacks escaping from the Hell that was St. Louis in those days and Mexicans. Ours – my mom and I – were about the only white family on the street. I think that every house had a car on cinder-blocks in the driveway and a sagging roof. The car in our driveway – a Cordoba with a peeling roof - was left behind by one of her boyfriends. It's probably still there as the required accessory for some other family.

My mom wouldn't let me out of the house because, she explained in that slurred voice I remember so well, 'it was too dangerous'. I watched the other kids playing baseball in the street from the window but I didn't let them see me. She didn't let me go to school either but, by the time I was about eight or nine, I had taught myself to read from the 'TV Guide' in the bathroom or the magazines – the ones with pictures of women – that her friends left.

At about the same time, I also learnt to make videos – sort of like the ones I had found in my mother's closet when she wasn't home. Those videos showed my mom with no clothes on and some guy would be doing things to her with his penis or, sometimes, a beer bottle. I didn't understand but they seemed to be happy – even when they slapped her – so I figured it was OK. In my videos, I copied what they did.

I said that my mother was a strict disciplinarian; her preferred method of discipline was her cigarette and, while it hurt, it also got the message across and made me a better person. The first time that I can remember – I was, maybe, four years old or a bit younger - I had spilt a glass of orange-juice on the kitchen table. It made an awful mess. My mom didn't bat an eye; she just swung out from where she was leaning against the counter with a glass of vodka and planted the cigarette in the back of my neck.

When she caught me touching things that I shouldn't – like taking food from the cupboard when I was hungry – she would explain it to me like this:

'Kid – whatever-your-name-is – you don't touch f'ing nothing around here.'

Then she would put out two cigarettes in the palms of my hands and beat me for making her waste the cigarettes. I learnt not to get caught, so she never knew about the videos.

When I was 13 or so, I had a crush on a Hispanic girl that lived across the street. She was slightly younger, slim and with rapidly developing breasts but, she had beautiful, long hair like my mother's. I lured her into the house by saying that I had ice-cream.

When I was finished, her body was spattered with the stuff that came out of me. She was crying, so I slapped her again and told her that she was my girlfriend. I untied her and turned off the video camera. I felt guilty that I must have done something wrong because she didn't make those sounds that I had heard on my mother's videos. I let her go home, saying that if she ever told anyone I hadn't done it right, I would cut off all her hair.

I guess that she was the first.

'None are so blind as those who will not see.'

For, to see, one's eyes must be open.
No. It is more than that.
Not only must the eyes be open but, so must also be open the mind: acute, aware, questioning; searching for and finding patterns in similitude or disparity; linking information and finding explanation – roots, causes and correlations – by the subtle flux between neurons.
Yes. It is is much more than only eyes.

Perhaps, in those days, we were all as blind as cave fish, enmeshed, as it were, in a net of our own creation; made oblivious by supposed connection within a growing culture of self-absorption, false self-importance and misguided concepts of significance, such that, in the span of that lapsus menti, the degradation deepened and the desperation grew.

However, to continue in that vein would be to get ahead of the story. Where to begin though, is not easy to determine; there will be other storytellers in the generations to come – if there are any future generations – who, with the retrospective sight of one or two hundred years, will be more able to tease out the subtler truths. Or, on the other hand, maybe there are no 'subtler truths' to be had but, instead, only the accumulation – native to the system – of entropic effects which, beside the forces of progress that brought expansion and prosperity, inevitably destabilised that same system and led to its demise: a 'butterfly' effect rather than, say, a '99 Red Balloons' effect.

Still, and with due acknowledgment to its entirely moot or completely fallacious essence, over the years many single causes were proposed. Repeatedly touted were the terrible events of September 11, 2001 after which the world became increasingly xenophobic, however and as true as it may be superficially, as an explanation in and of itself, it lacks substance. The effects of four airplanes were certainly great but one must also take into account the precursors; the imperialistic, hegemonic foreign policies of the world's super-powers as far back as the Second World War and even prior to that.

More a propos may be the disastrous repercussions of the 2008 economic collapse as it soon became evident that, quite simply, the market forces had changed – never to be the same again: fortunes were wiped out; companies closed their doors; currencies devalued and, despite assertions that unemployment was 'only' at 8% or 10%, population increase had seen to those figures representing vast numbers of single individuals.

Political leaders were quick in the following years to assert that the economy was stable or 'growing slightly' and the media talking heads followed suit, singing the same song. This, for those with the necessary vision, was belied by the fact that the media is owned – not independent – and that leaders are not in the business of governing a populace or managing a country; leaders represent only a power struggle for self-perpetuation and preservation of status against their opposing parties. The results only became clearer with the passing years.

Low and middle income, personal economies were increasingly stretched as pay scales were compressed – often not even maintaining with the cost of living. The costs of basic staples skyrocketed. The price of gas meant that owning and running a personal vehicle became a luxury which, for many, could not be sustained.

The ground truth – entirely aside from the expounded news – spoke of an increasing economic desperation and, ever anxious to oblige, the media coined the term, 'The Great Desperation', an 'oh-so-clever' spin on 'The Great Depression' of the late 1920's and early 1930's.

It became impossible to travel down a street of business plazas and not see 'For Lease' or 'For Sale' signs on nearly every lawn. Even very large facilities – 20 and 30 thousand square feet – returned to the market and the signs, under the effects of passing seasons, bleached and drooped while the buildings remained vacant. At the same time, companies that offered 'payday loans' – for a mere 10 to 20% cut – seemed to bloom like mushrooms after a forest rain on every street corner testifying to a growing need for rapid liquidity to satisfy basic daily or weekly needs.

The numbers of the homeless and destitute, even where formerly they would not have been visible, exploded. I remember one day – it was about four or five years after the collapse – walking home from some errands and cutting through the parking lot of a gas station. There, I saw, sitting in the back seat of a car that had clearly become her home, a young woman nursing a baby. I turned away to protect her privacy before she noticed me and, now, so many years later, there is no doubt of the impression that sight made on me, though, in the intervening years, I have seen much worse.

It is true that desperate times call for desperate measures and, those driven to desperate levels of poverty – a perversion of that which was portrayed – began to take what they could not acquire by more responsible means. The police blithely noted that the rate per capita of violent crimes, including home invasions, involving guns, knives or other weapons and for the purposes of theft began to climb steadily.

The gap between rich and poor only widened as the middle class was gradually decimated. What had formerly been referred to as the 'one percent' decreased, becoming approximately two-thirds of one percent – those with sufficient money and power to continue to live normally; more and more, flaunting their own lifestyles with unconscionable displays of lavish excess.

Farming as a viable economic strategy became untenable and a world food crisis ensued. The Water Wars began through southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The arctic became ice-free and, scrambling for resources, the northern countries all came into border conflict. Every government in the world expended its resources – human and economic – to either participate or sustain a war effort while, among the population, the proportion of destitute and poor grew to 40, 50, and even 80%.

The streets became unsafe. Most western countries reintroduced the death penalty to combat violent assault but, as the deterrent value of capital punishment has many times been refuted, this was testament only to the amorality of a government which kills its own citizens. In any case, national governments ceased to exist within 30 years and were replaced by a local, feudal systems. Government collapse meant that money was no longer more than fuel for the fire; those that had managed to convert their worth to gold, silver or precious gems, survived. The barter system returned – grain, livestock, human meat or precious commodities.

In the cities, those with the means to do so withdrew, first, into fenced communities. As the rate of death by homicide among security guards grew that, as an option, quickly dissipated. They began to create fortified colonies, usually in luxury condominiums. These, internally, were exquisitely stratified with those of the highest income at the top and relatively safe from assault. Those with the lowest incomes, in the 500G to 1M range, were at the bottom and susceptible to burglars, external gunfire and fire-bombing. Where possible due to the complete collapse of so many industries, neighboring buildings, become home to squatters, were, without warning of any kind, demolished and bulldozed in order to produce a razor-wired, no-man's land for additional security.

With the passage of more years, the cities became places of plague – stinking of death. The population migrated again, this time to the country with the starving following the rich for, in the midden of the fortified hilltop village, a crust of bread – even stained with excrement – was food.

Writing of these things has exhausted my soul and, at this hour, the candle is burning low. I will not write more of this story because, having what memory remains to me at my age, the conjured images of our shining cities of the past cause me to weep terribly, pathetically for what we did not see and what we would not see but, nevertheless, was there for all with the ability – the cognition – to perceive. What happened, we did by conscious effort and by passive denial; both of which, in the end, were actions.

Edward Carnegie
May 6th, 2053(?)

The inquiry was directed toward my assistant, Penny Richards, who, sitting to my left in a large, comfortable, office chair, had placed a small pile of candidate files on the corner of my desk. I leaned back and took a sip of my coffee.

“HR narrowed it down to fifteen, sir. We'll do five interviews each morning so it doesn't eat up too much time.”

“That sounds perfect, Ms. Richards – as always.” I grinned at her. “Let's have the first one and see how this goes.”

Nodding, Penny picked up the phone and, pressing the button for reception, said, “Hi Bev, could you send in 'Tamara Jenkins', please?” Satisfied, she hung up and we both relaxed in our chairs.

It had taken forever and a day to get to this point but, after discussion over discussion of the benefits to be had from a full-time PR person, it had finally been agreed that the time had come. After that, the task had only become more difficult because, we reasoned, it was one thing to decide on the need – it was entirely a different situation to come to a consensus on the image and presence which we wanted to be the public face of the corporation.

“I want a guy,” the CEO had growled at me; “it speaks of solid management and decision making.”

“OK, Bill,” I answered, smiling. “Why don't I just get you a linesman and, when they ask questions, he can tackle 'em?”

“Exactly!” Then he stopped abruptly. “You don't think that's the best solution, do you?”

“Not as such,” I affirmed.

Penny had come to the rescue.

In a previous meeting, I had looked over and seen her doodling in her notepad. On several occasions, we had also spoken of the image that seemed right – to us – to project. On that day, I had asked her what she was drawing and she showed it to me: at that point, all the pieces seemed to fall into place. I looked at the picture and blinked several times before commenting.

“I had no idea you were artistic,” I offered. Penny smiled.

“Before I became a corporate assistant, I studied fashion design for a couple years,” she stated.

“Why didn't you continue?”

“Too flaky,” she said, simply.

“What was?”

“Just the work environment,” she commented. “It seemed as though no one was stable; they were always flying off the handle.”

“And you consider working for me to be a step up in the world?” I implicitly acknowledged my own ability to be forgetful, absent and, occasionally, terribly disorganised.

“You have no idea, sir.”

“Huh. Imagine that,” I responded and returned to studying the sketch.

It was the image of a woman in a business suit but, there were qualities in it that seemed to galvanise all of the characteristics which we had prioritised: efficient, confident, strong and, yet, lacking nothing of the feminine sincerity she could bring to bear on any corporate announcement. I slid the sketch across the desk to the CEO. He scowled.

“Who's this?” He slid his glasses down his nose and evaluated the figure.

“She's no one. It's a sketch – Penny did it.”

There was a moment of silence while studied the woman, his eyebrows knotted tightly and, finally, he sent the page skidding back across the desk to me.

“Find her and pray she's a PR person,” he pronounced. I went to tell Penny the good news.

The first interview did not go so well. In fact, it did not go at all.

Tamara Jenkins had presented with solid credentials and a reasonable work history considering how young she was – only 27. It had been sufficient for her to be ranked 15th and earn her an interview. Penny and I had worked up a number of charades designed to throw our candidates off-balance such that we could evaluate their poise and ability to react in a composed manner. Tamara, however, did not get to be witness to our meagre acting talents.

The creature that entered clearly had a different game-plan than we did: her hair was over-done; she sported far too much eye make-up over voluptuous, red lips; her blouse was sufficiently open to reveal an ample cleavage which was only accentuated by her jacket buttoned to just below her bust and, as we agreed later, her skirt was so short that you could practically see her soul. To round out this picture of professionalism, she was also chewing gum. In her honour, the term 'seven kinds of inappropriate' was later coined.

Trying to stifle the laugh that was rapidly building, I stood and said simply, “Thank you for your time, Ms. Jenkins. We won't be needing your... ah... services.”

She huffed and did a pirouette on one stiletto heel and, wiggling her back-side like a dog in heat, she slammed the door on leaving. Penny and I collapsed in peals of laughter.

“What was she thinking?” I barely articulated the words while gasping for breath and wiping the tears from my eyes. Penny hiccuped, similarly reduced.

“I know exactly what she was thinking,” she said, eying me lasciviously and causing us to break down again. After a few minutes, we regained our composure.

“Wow,” I observed. “Does that still work in this day and age?”

“I'm willing to bet that it does,” answered Penny with a frown and waved the resumé in the air before replacing it in its green, file folder and setting it aside to be shredded.

“She'll sleep her way to the top and be some executive's wife before you know it.”

I could only shake my head.

The remainder of the interviews on that Monday proceeded better but not astoundingly so. By Wednesday and the 14th interview, I was growing frustrated and impatient to be done with it.

“I think you drew an impossible girl, Penny,” I quipped as we returned to our seats with fresh, steaming mugs of coffee.

“We got one that you liked yesterday,” she offered in consolation.

“Yeah – what was her name?”

“Bhavana Srishankar.”

“That's right. Interesting girl but, I worry about her look – too much 'exotic' could overwhelm the message. We'll give her a call-back anyway. Who's next?”

We settled in and Penny selected the second to last folder.

“And the winner is... Meghan Elridge, sorry, Eldridge.” She called reception.

The woman who entered was perfectly contained and, Penny and I were given our best opportunity yet to test our performance art. I feigned shouting into the phone.

“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Bennet, that those documents were not on a 'direct' at 9 this morning?”

Penny did a wonderful imitation of 'shivering in fear' as I held up my hand stopping Meghan in her tracks five feet short of the desk. She attempted to smile politely at Penny but, Penny shook her head 'no'.

“Excuse me, Mr. Bennet? What part of 'I need these on a 'direct' at 9' was unclear? End of day is not an option. See that the delivery is intercepted and I don't care if you have to do it yourself! After that, you will see me and we will discuss the meaning of 'negligence' and your future in my department. Good day, sir.”

I did my best to make something throb in my temple but, having no luck, I slammed the phone onto the cradle.

“Get me his HR file,” I spat at Penny.

“I will, sir,” she croaked weakly. Meghan looked on, clearly confused, but her composure was unaltered.

“You,” I addressed her, “present your credentials. You have five minutes and can use the white-board if you want.” I summed up with a vague and dismissive gesture toward the opposite wall.

“That won't be necessary, sir,” she began. “It is clear that this is a busy morning for you and so I won't take any more time than is necessary.”

She paused, thinking.

“The clock is ticking,” I prompted, frowning. She stood impassively.

“I believe that my credentials speak for themselves both in terms of a range of titles within the corporate environment, as well as, depth of experience in the particular field of 'public relations' which I have chosen as my profession...”

Flawless.

She retained her stance with her hands lightly clasped in front of her. Her elocution was crisp and clear – without the hint of a regional accent. Nevertheless, her head was in constant motion, turning and nodding to both of her interlocutors and making eye-contact; her face, serious and expressive. She even had the presence of mind to conclude with a joke.

“After receiving my M.BA degree from the Chancellor, I turned and was immediately blinded by a spot light. So with black spots swimming in front of my eyes, I descended the stairs and,” she grinned ruefully, “missed the last one. I fell and chipped my knee-cap but I got up and joined the others for the graduation parade. That is how I run my life and my career – I'll fall but I get back up and keep going – even with a knee swollen to the size of a watermelon.”

She smiled broadly and fell silent.

“Well done, Ms. Eldridge,” I commented. Penny was energetically nodding her approval.

“You may sit and we'll continue the interview.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking the offered chair and carefully arranging her knees to the left with her ankles crossed.

Further along – almost a full hour – I had another shot at her.

“Why should I,” I said, drumming at the resumé with a pen, “invest this company's resources in someone who has not come from top ranked universities?”

“Sir,” she said, her gaze level, “you will do what you think best to address this corporation's PR concerns; I am that, regardless of the schools attended.” She paused, studying my face.

“Do you recall the Toyota debacle?”

“The gas pedal thing?”

“Precisely. I was contracted to help with that PR nightmare or, as I refer to it, 'PR gone horribly wrong'. My first action was to tell them to 'shut up' and stop making it worse. At the termination of the contract, I was offered a sizable bonus by my superior, Mr. Yamaguchi, which I refused, telling him that the conditions of the contract were entirely sufficient.”

“Do you mean to tell me that it was you behind that?”

“The documentation is in my file, sir, and the answer is in front of you.”

“What's that?”

“Toyota is still here: it has regained consumer confidence and market share.”

“Do you put out fires?”

“With proper PR, there are no fires to put out.”

Nodding, I accepted the trump gracefully. Standing and exiting from behind the desk, I offered my hand. She rose to accept.

“Ms. Eldridge, I will look forward to having you on the team.”

“I will as well,” she said, smiling. “And by the way," she added with a playful glint in her eye, "I enjoyed the performance on the phone earlier but, a manager who is angry enough to threaten termination does not sit back in their chair – completely wrong body language.”

I couldn't help laughing.