Friday, March 25, 2011

Sucker

Trey's Days No. 8


Sucker


In sleepy suburbs, moneyed mansions, bullet pocked projects and raw row houses, hardening of the heart happens. It happens in children. Their eyes go from open oceans of wonder to cat eyes cocked for danger. Hands go from open palms waiting for sweets to fists clinched for smashing. But how? How do hearts get hardened?

Flannery O'Connor tells the story of a little boy called “Sucker.” He was adopted and felt adopted. He shared a bedroom with his older step brother. He idolized him and would do anything he said. Once Sucker jumped off the roof because his older brother told him if he held an umbrella it would act like a parachute. Sucker got pretty banged up earning his nickname.

The time came that Sucker's step brother was feeling better about himself, having a girlfriend, and started treating Sucker better. They were friends for a brief period and Sucker got the love he craved from his older brother.

“His face seemed different now. He used to look timid and sort of like he was afraid of a whack over the head. That expression was gone. His face, with those wide-open eyes and his ears sticking out and his mouth never quite shut, had the look of a person who is surprised and expecting something swell.”

Then the girlfriend left. The older brother felt bad and started taking it out on Sucker. After that Sucker changed. He hardened when that love was taken away: “Afterward I could remember the change in Sucker's face. Slowly that blank look went away and he closed his mouth. His eyes got narrow and his fists shut. There had never been such a look on him before. It was like every second he was getting older. There was a hard look to his eyes you don't see usually in a kid. A drop of sweat rolled down his chin and he didn't notice. He just sat there with those eyes on me and he didn't speak and his face was hard and didn't move.....All of that was two or three months ago. Since then Sucker has grown faster than any boy I ever saw. He's almost as tall as I am and his bones have gotten heavier and bigger....He's gotten up this gang of kids and they have a club...On the door there is some foolishness written in Mercurochrome saying 'Woe to the Outsider Who Enters' and signed with crossed bones and their secret initials.”

Flannery's tale of the hardening of a heart got me thinking about how it happens. Every time I see a news story about a kid being charged with a felony I wonder about their childhood. How do we make a child who can commit horrible crimes, who appears to have no conscience? I think Flannery's Sucker gives us a clue.

I had a cushy childhood. We had everything we needed and most of what we wanted, and yet I felt poor. It seemed there was always somebody who had more, or better, or different. My cousins came to visit us from Connecticut in their little Piper Cub. They'd take us up for a spin over Memphis and spend the day before they flew off for the coast. Suddenly, lucky to be invited, I felt less than. We went to a church where a lot of the people had Cadillacs and BMW's. We had a Ford--less than. My parents and grandparents loved us very much and provided well. But I was gay--less than. My dad loved me too but in an effort to make a man of me he could be pretty abusive--less than. I was never comfortable in my own skin. Now all this sounds like whining, and I am grateful for the blessings I had, but there was enough abusive ridiculing for me to identify with kids who had it worse. Hardening of the heart also happens in middle class homes where there's plenty. Thinking back I remember how the hardening of the heart can happen. Children can be very cruel, and my parents advice was to ignore them. I learned how to harden my heart and do what it took to get through school.

“What are you looking at?” a voice boomed across the locker room. I was horrified. As I heard the voice I realized I had allowed my eyes to come to rest on the bulging red briefs of a cocky little athlete. We were in the ninth grade and he seemed to be one of the more blessed among us. And considering he was parading around the locker room in red bikini briefs one might be forgiven for thinking he wanted us to notice. When I heard his accusing voice I knew immediately the “ignore them and they'll go away” strategy needed to be kicked into over drive. Turning away I ignored him, and sure enough it worked. Each time the “ignore them” strategy worked like an invisibility cloak, my heart hardened a little

I was not the boy my Dad wanted. I didn't want to play baseball. I didn't like places that he liked. I remember a time he took me back into the cypress swamp in north Florida. It was dark and the dripping moss and swarming bugs made my skin itch and I didn't trust him. I was afraid and I cried and begged him to take me out. He was mad. He drove the boat back to the house as fast as it would go. He didn't speak. Knowing I had disappointed him I was ashamed. My heart hardened a little. I knew I was a disappointment but I also knew I had to stand my ground. Like Sucker, I had to harden. I had to be a survivor in the face of a father who wanted a different son.

Once I felt warm spit soak through my hair. I reached up and touched it. I smelled it. I gagged. Darrel, the tough kid who lived around the corner sneered and laughed. Instead of hating him, somehow it made me admire him in a strange way. Knowing I had not been the son my Dad wanted, of course someone so self-assured, so masculine would loath me, would spit on my head just for fun. It seemed natural after a time to be reviled by boys more like ones my Dad would have wanted. My heart hardened to the reality that the ones I wanted did not want me. They would use me, taunt and abuse me, and I would learn to act like I liked it. After acting “as if” long enough that becomes reality. The twisted truth was I learned to hate myself and in that self loathing sought out ones like Daddy, ones who had disdain for fairies. A hardened heart can take it.

National Public Radio recently ran a story on crime among the youth of Chicago. During a time in which over all crime in Chicago is down, youth crime, particularly killings are rising at an alarming rate. In a years time 700 children were hit by gunfire and 66 died. Students are being exposed to risk walking to school. In 2009 we saw the viral cell phone video of Derrion Albert being beat to death. How can it be that while crime over all is down children are becoming more violent?

I heard a stranger tell his story the other day. He shot up cocaine, got shot up in gun fights, learned how to harden to the hard reality of living in a whore house. He didn't know his mother was a whore until one day he was ogling a “tall pretty white lady”, and she said “It'll take twenty-five dollars.” Twenty-five dollars? “What's she talkin' 'bout?” Then it dawned on him. All the partying, the men in suits, the pretty women, the drinks, the music; it was all for hire. “My mammy run a whore house!”

A hardened heart is well equipped to run a hustle, some game or other to get hooch, blow, whatever is required to make it go away, that screaming pain. A roll of bills and some stuff stands between a hardened heart and annihilation. Sucker's clinched fist and his little gang stands between a hardened heart and annihilation. Even in my own protected childhood I too learned it, how a heart can harden. We all learn it. And that's how we know what it means to be a child who winds up standing before a jury, charged as an adult, in a world where hardening of the heart happens to children. Each of us, if we think back, can remember the times when our once open wondering heart hardened to some hard reality. That's the remembering that brings up the compassion in us that can't be killed. Underneath lies still the open wonder of a child, soft, warm flowing feeling before the hardening of the heart. Can you remember?


Monday, March 14, 2011

Trey's Days No. 7




Encouraging friends cheer, “Write, write, write.” “Glad you're on the right track.” “Wonderful, beautiful, keep writing.” But I was broke when the door handle in the car broke as I was returning from an errand intended to take me back to where I was before philosophy, before Dr. E's non-theist faith dawned, before “too much education”. The sagely Vajrayana mother said the symbolism of that broken door handle must not be lost. But country folk will tell you, “What's wrong with her is she's got too much education.” And they'll ask, incredulous, “What's all that philosophy for anyway?” Sitting there on a sack of seed the old planter admonishes “Yeah, but you gotta eat!”

Flannery O'Connor has the writer's mother say, “When people think they are smart—even when they are smart—there is nothing anybody else can say to make them see things straight, and with Asbury, the trouble was that in addition to being smart, he had an artistic temperament.....she had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one room school house through the eighth grade, and he could do anything.” Enduring Chill indeed! But that's not the end of our story.

How does the writer write? How did Carson and Flannery, Tennessee and Truman make it from mind to print, stomach growling pressed against the spine? Can we serve God and mammon? Rice and beans can get old when all there is is “too much education” and the spark of an idea. Then the angel Super Moon shining in the sky delivers the Sparkling Host of the Insatiable Mind and whispers “Fear Not!” And just remember, “There are those this very day that would be glad to get a little rice and beans.” Gratitude in all things is the salving balm.

A tiny quiet woman priest in Christ Church's pulpit hits me with a glimpse of Glory. Suddenly Annie Dillard's crash helmet makes sense. Lashed to the pew, a glimpse is all it takes, and the gentle deaconess reminds me to be grateful, and I am, for being thrashed about. I make a list, which starts and ends with my people, people who have been the hand of God through thick and thin, the banker hierophant, the physician deaconess, the councilor friend who help answer the call. Thank you all.

Thomas Hart Benton had a wife who made hats. She worked to earn money while he painted and drew. It was all he could do. Truman, Flannery and Tennessee with words painted too. What else could they do? Who supported their work? How did they make do? Someone will support the work, but who? And then there's that angel again with the Sparkling Host of the Insatiable Mind rising like a super moon in a biography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reminding us to trust, to write, to make our art. Fear not, but wear a helmet. Nice timing--stomach growling. The angel in the form of Cartier-Bresson, in the form of an Appalachian bishop, in the form of a tiny priest, in the form of Annie Dillard's crash helmet reminds us to hold on, to trust and expect to be thrashed about. Oh, Japan! Holding out would not be possible alone, but we are not alone, Japan you are not alone—the angel reminds us—do the work and dare to dream.

It would be demoralizing if we got an education only to find that there's nothing to do but go back to what was possible before. Why would we go to school at all? Not for Profit by Martha Nussbaum rings in my head. The gift of the Sparkling Host is for the world. Give it! Give it now. Are we crazy to think that God will feed the belly even as She gives the gift of the Insatiable Mind? The angel appears again with that Sparkling Host. “Fear not!” Give it to the world. Just give it. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Bombs away--write, write, write.

It's the insatiability of the mind that fuels the art. When Thomas Hart Benton's wife had a friend visit from Missouri, the friend asked, “How can you stand to live like this?”--no heat, kerosine lamps in the middle of Manhattan, a dresser drawer for the baby's crib—Mrs. Benton replied, “My husband is a genius.” He painted what he saw, went back to Missouri and drew the people there. Blacksmiths, white hooded Klansmen, the “S” shaped curves of a blue black woman dancing like there's no tomorrow. Now we've got his murals in the Missouri state capitol and the Truman Presidential Library, and they call him the king of the Regionalists.

Thomas Hart Benton and Henri Cartier-Bresson saw it, and Flannery and Carson understood. Truman and Tennessee knew too. When the angel has delivered the Sparkling Host of the Insatiable Mind the old white bread of before will never do. There's no going back. Write, write, write. Trust, clean house, help others. And the angel said, “Fear not!”

When we heard the title “For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow was not Enough” it rang. We knew! But the Sparkling Host of the Insatiable Mind might be more than enough. Glimpses of glory might be more than enough. Any more would blow our circuits. They're already smoking; keep a fire extinguisher by the desk. Sparks fly in the stream of consciousness where angels shatter the sun into Carl Parker's sundogs. Crash helmets strapped on, lashed to the pew-- thanks for the warning Annie. And the angel said “Fear not!”

Paul Newman said one time that if you hear someone who is successful in the arts tell their story and they don't mention luck, they're lying. He was humble and considered his success to be mostly looks and luck. Serendipity is a word that has been used to describe the way in which the artist encounters circumstances which enable her to do her art. Setting aside those materialist messengers who tell you to be realistic and trusting in luck means having faith. It's faith that tells us to trust that if we give our art breath and life the world will meet us half way. All the Nelle Harper Lees, Truman Capotes, Tennessee Williamses and Paul Newmans, the Thomas Hart Bentons and Henri Cartier-Bressons, and yes all the yous and mes, know all we need to know at a certain time when despair has run its course. There is a place in heaven for those who pray, and a place for the artist who trusts that daring to dream calls the angels. Fear not. Your time and mine is nigh. Remember, at first Moses said no. But Aaron came out to meet him and went with him back to Egypt and the words were put in their mouths; “tell ole Pharaoh, 'let my people go!.'” Just go!

If you are one as I am who ingests the Sparkling Host of the Insatiable Mind as it rises and hears the angel whisper “Fear Not”, know that your time has come. Trust, dream, make your art. The world—illumined by that rising super moon resting gently on the wings of the angel—hungers for the present of your gift.