It's Complicated

Life is…. Confusion and conflict consume us.

Don’t take my word for it. Look around. Cognitive thought has capitulated. We’re in the abyss of digital arcana, home to no human voice. Computers control everything. Mattresses even play music. We’re hopelessly lost.

Recently we purchased a wire holder for office files. Ripping the box apart sapped the strength of two stout men. About 2,000 components cascaded to the floor. Directions were in Chinese. A picture yielded the only clue. Flee from anything that advises, “Assembly Required.”

Try opening simple packages, like batteries. You’ll lacerate yourself in the process. Or try buying an airline ticket from a voice.

Ed calls. He’s a lawyer. He whines that the accountant’s numbers don’t add up. He says the Gen Y gangs of MBA grads have gummed up the system. They can’t balance books on napkins anymore. They create enigmatic spread sheets, confounding the over-50 crowd. It’s complicated.

My phone rings. It’s the Probate Judge. “We need to talk,” she says. “We have a problem with your finger prints.” Now, hearing a judge say this is akin to the doctor’s office calling, saying, “About your X-rays….”

What’s this about? I’ll tell you. I applied for a gun permit. With crime exceeding that of Sodom and Gomorrah, citizens need to be heavily armed. Even pea shooters require a license. I learned this as a child. The kinetic energy of a pea is directly proportionate to the length of the shooter and the lungs of the blower. Dangerous weapons in the hands of young boys.

I go over to discuss the problem. The sign on the Courthouse sidewalk warns, “Caution—Uneven.” Justice is still uneven in the legal system. The courthouse is a solemn and imposing structure. Beneath its Corinthian columns one could imagine Aristotle, sitting, swinging the scales of justice, simply passing the time of day. He’s not here today, and the scales tilt noticeably to the left.

Do you know how many laws are in the federal statutes? Nobody does. The Federal Register, according to some, numbers 34,844 pages, weighs 340 pounds. There’re so many criminal laws that it’s easier to match the DNA of a Neanderthal to a monkey than to avoid breaking one law in your lifetime. Things are complicated. Ask the IRS.

Justice in Georgia lurks on every corner for people who curse dead bodies and carry ice cream cones in their pockets on Sundays. Donkeys cannot be kept in bathtubs and no spitting is allowed on Sunday sidewalks. Fried chicken must be eaten with both hands and you can’t tease idiots. Floggings for anyone tying a giraffe to a telephone pole. And more.

Suspended on the flag pole are flags of America and Georgia. Today, these symbols of the equal American Dream hang limply, their energy sucked out by the conflicting issues of states’ rights. They resemble worn-out warriors, entwined in an exhausted embrace in an indecisive, post-orgasmic ordeal. It’s complicated.

Inside, I’m told the GBI rejects my prints, say they oddly match those of Richard Nixon. I play along. They re-print me. She tells me if the FBI rejects them, I may be incarcerated and transferred to Quantico where detainees are interrogated by the goon squads of Guantanamo.

Probate Courts issue gun permits, marriage licenses, settle estates, commit the criminally insane and change names. I considered a name change to confound my enemies. “No can do,” she says. “The Women’s Anti-Defamation League still harbors a resentment against you.” I remember the bon mot, “Friends attrite and enemies accrete.” I let it slide.

I ask to withdraw my concealed weapon permit. “Too late,” she says. “Why?” I ask. “It’s complicated,” she says. “You’re ‘in the system’ now. There’s no exit.” I ask if the Probate court is connected to the IRS. She’s not amused. I zip it and leave.

Ace Blackbanks, a philosopher, calls, wants to have a drink. We have several. Give a man a drink and he’ll tell the truth. Says he’s concluded that shoddy mattresses are causing the rampant rise in divorces. Says the problem is always in the bed. He shows me a mattress photo. It undulates. A mountain in the middle separates two sunken valleys on either side. He calls it the ‘scrimmage line’ where extremes exist. He has too much time on his hands.

It’s all too much for one day. On the way home I also come to a conclusion. Life is not as complicated as we make it…just breathe!

Bud Hearn
January 26, 2012

The Boneyard

“I’m digging up bones, I’m digging up bones, exhuming things that’s better left alone…”
Randy Travis

A few days ago I woke up inside of a headache.

It happens every year. It’s caused by accountants who are in complicity with the IRS. Everything must balance, all must reconcile. It’s a sickness. They’re obsessive tyrants inflicting punishment with each errant check written. In 2011 there were quite a few. Most were vagrants, sustained by the thin air of hope and promises!

Inside of a headache is a solitary padded room, the kind found in mental institutions, cold, no windows, no door, no mini-bar, a concrete floor, a bed bolted to the wall, no room service and a uni-sex toilet with no lid (the only perk!). I have a standing reservation there, made by my accountant. This year I vowed a short stint in that hell by promising to prepare taxes on time.

The following events transpired because of that promise:

Every January finds me in the boneyard
with my Assistant, working on taxes,
digging into checkbooks,
sorting out the details of last year’s train wreck.

Forensic tools lie arranged,
computer, red-ink pens, calculator, legal pads and laptops.
The conference table resembles an Operating Room,
A surreal stage to anatomically restructure the fiscal year.

We labor in lockstep, the IRS bell tolls.
The method is always the same. She digs deep,
exposes the financial bones of last year’s transactions,
facts without flesh, cold, dead, without feeling, impossible to recall.

We slog through all the checkbooks, try to sort it out.
It’s drudgery, slow, agonizing and torturous work.
Her patience is short. Sometimes she shoves. I often shirk.
My memory escapes, hissing like steam from Yellowstone.

This check, that check, for what? For how much?
Every check is a mystery, prompting an interrogation.
You forget to code, to label, to balance she says.
Your brain is a sieve, I work for an idiot. I agree.

My mind moans, digging is manual labor, hard and painful,
putting flesh on the bones of last-year’s numbers.
We break, walk next door for donuts, a reprieve
from house arrest, dragging our balls and chains.

The clock’s in hot pursuit with its incessant tick, tick, tick.

We continue the reconciling, resurrecting the corporate corpse.
This deal, that deal, they interlace, twisting, turning,
winding down an endless and tortuous road.
My mind spins cartwheels trying to assemble details.

Hours, days pass. Files lie scattered in random disarray.
Ledgers, checks and food scraps litter the room.
The table is a tornado aftermath, a primordial chaos.
We curse it and each other, but keep digging.

She threatens to resign. I threaten to accept. No one leaves.
A breakthrough…one gets done, then another, a third, one more to go.
We can see the light, until
she discovers some checks are missing.

Where are they? We panic, pound on the padded walls.
At wit’s end we call the bank, they lament the computers are down.
We fabricate the numbers, apply the sleight of hand.
The accountant calls and taunts us, prods with her tick, tick, tick.

The headache room is shrinking, its walls are closing in.
Our heads throb, endless numbers swirl, demanding closure.
Long-term confinement looms.
So little time, always no time, always no time.

We abandon all hope of early release,
incarcerated with last year’s bones.
Until we get the banker’s call
and reconciliation is achieved!

We break for beer, celebrate and come back for cleanup. In the process she picks up a checkbook and notices missing checks for 2012. What’s this, she says? You could see it coming. Sprinting from the padded room I yell, “Fresh graves for next year’s boneyard…it’s job security!” Her response, though unprintable, echoes in my ears.

Bud Hearn
January 19, 2012

Climbing Trees

Almost to the top…just one more limb, Roy Junior thought. The allure of the Titan of all oak trees tempted him.

He overstretched his reach, ignoring the risk. His hand grasped a brittle branch, and his footing slipped on the green mossy limb. He swung out into the empty air and dangled there. His feet kicked, treading the nothingness beneath.

His 10-year-old life hung helplessly for brief seconds from the pinnacle. He remembered his father’s advice, “Son, don’t climb to the top of THAT tree.” Now he knew why. Eternity waited below.

The Mt. Everest Oak is massive. No one has yet succeeded in scaling it. The tree is on lands settled by the Simian clan who had branched out, so to speak, from New Jersey. They settled in the swamps of the Low Country.

The family scion, Colonel Roy Simian (Colonel, his name, not his rank), taught his son to climb from birth. The boy was a prodigy. By age 10, he had climbed the largest oak trees in America. But, he became obsessive, wanting more.

The Everest Oak is a shrine. National Geographic photographs it. Some say the face of Mother Mary appears in its highest branches. Baptist pilgrims hold tent revivals in its shade. The mammon of gate receipts has made Colonel Roy rich.

It’s undeniable…children love to climb trees. After 12, who climbs trees? The risk-reward ratio is not worth the effort. Even dogs find an allure to the highest point attainable. Dogs on furniture, children in trees. What’s the attraction, what’s the charm? The question demands an answer.

Roy Junior became a tree-climbing cult icon after the Babel County Gazette had published the account of his ascent. Buses of texting teens came to hear the perils of getting, uh, climbing too high. Unemployed beggars set up hovels outside the gate. The scene was Woodstock déjà vu.

Colonel Roy reaped profits by pontificating on Oprah his theory of “Why” people like to climb. Simple, he preached. “Monkey Genes.” The Gazette reporter needed details. Colonel Roy obliged, saying that amorphous forms oozed from the ocean and crawled ashore. They evolved into prehensile knuckle-draggers, then to cave-squatting Troglodytes. He averred that the aberrant gene lays latent in humans.

Such profane blabber from a member of the Simian tribe lacerated the old wounds of Evolution, polarizing the community. Churches debated the subject endlessly. Heated verbal exchanges ensued.

The reporter extrapolated in metaphorical terms the concept of climbing. There’re many “trees” to climb, he asserted. The Keeping-up-with-the-Joneses remains a favorite to climb. It’s loaded with limbs at the bottom. Likewise, the Money Tree. Its limbs are illusionary. Both these trees are slippery and neither has a top.

The Academic Tree is mossy. Tedium is required to ascend. The Athletic Tree has brittle limbs. Only the deranged and deluded attempt to scale beyond its lowest base. The Who-Do-You-Know Tree is more vine than tree. It entangles the climber in confusion. The list of metaphorical trees is long.

Things can sometimes go sideways when climbing trees, just as Roy Junior discovered. Climbing is not necessarily bad. It’s exhilarating to reach new heights. But at the top the air is thin, the consequences of disaster are great.

The debates finally concluded. Babel County was at peace. The Baptists and Methodists settled their differences by shooting pool at the Am Vets Club. They reached a consensus on Evolution, agreeing unanimously that Darwin could have saved a lot of time and expense if he had simply studied the habits of young boys…proof positive of the Monkey Gene.

Things ended well for most. The reporter became a political speech writer, Jesse Jefferson returned to Harlem to quell the genetic issue, the KKK dispersed and Colonel Roy inked a movie deal and moved to Hollywood.

Roy Junior no longer climbs trees. The fall inflicted a massive head injury which caused his brain to swell. He’s now the reigning World Chess Champion.

Unfortunately, he sustained a permanent speech impediment. Like a mechanical toy, he stutters incessantly the words, “Just one more limb, just one more limb.”

Bud Hearn
January 12, 2012

Fools Rush In

“…They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved…who…burn, burn, burn…” Jack Kerouac, On the Road

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and for entertainment threw in a genus of humankind called “fools.” It was confirmed on January 1, 2012 at 9:00 AM on the Sea Island beach.

A horde huddled there in moderately warm winter weather, 55 degrees. The water temperature, a balmy 57. They were there for one reason…because they were offering proof of the created genus of “fools.” They were mad for life!

He hobbled across the wet sands and joined them, clad only in a bathing suit and sweat shirt. His inner voice pleaded, “Go home to your warm comforter.” His fool’s voice overruled. He had a reputation to uphold, an obligation to honor the pledge made to his friends who were already there.

They stood there, their white bodies shivering inside of the fog that enshrouded the scene. It swallowed them whole. The mist was a veil, shading the sun and adding insult to misery to the host of the insane pack. They trembled. They were condemned prisoners of the naked earth, breathing their last breath of the past life while waiting for the executioner’s whistle at 9:00. No one broke ranks.

He stared at the placid water. It looked like hard, gray granite with white moving cracks at the ocean’s edge. His voice of sanity spoke, “Are you also a fool? Are you really going to plunge into these frigid waters? Think of your heart!” Second thoughts of doubt stirred in his unstable mind. He squirmed.

The fool’s voice answered, “Too late. Can’t back out now. The reputation, the reputation.” It won again. The end was near, 8:57. Am I really a fool? He pondered the question.

Fools are pioneers. They thrive on the extremities of transcendent frontiers. They eclipse the creeping decay of the Convenient, the tedium of the Conventional and the comfort of Compromise. Insatiable is their lust for life.

Fools need little encouragement to do rash things. New Year’s Day helps some over the threshold. The remnants of the prior Eve’s bacchanalian celebration lingered in their eyes. A strange odor wafted throughout the crowd. Left-over alcohol, or fear? He couldn’t tell. But he knew that substance abuse sustained boastful pledges. Prayer moved on the lips of many in the throng.

Fools need no excuse for their actions. It’s their nature. They need no crowds for encouragement, except that spectators often juice adrenaline for heightened effect. Fools love attention. Crowds provide affirmation. On this day a head-shaking host of spectators, photographers and the EMT’s ambulance witnessed the pending rush of the Gadarene swine into the arctic abyss.

The voice of sanity pleaded, “Never too late. Feign illness.” The fool’s voice retorted, “Shut up. Get thee behind me, Satan. This is mere child’s play. Love is the biggest fool’s game. Intercede then.” But it was relentless. “People will hold you accountable for your actions. What will they say? Think of your family, the embarrassment.”

The fool’s voice mocked it, “You’re an idiot! Life exists on the Margins of adventure, on the edge of the Bottomless Pit, on wrestling with nature at its worst, and winning. Go home, you loser, crawl back under your comforter. Life has nothing to offer you.” It crept home in shame.

His watch read 8:59:30. Behind him people whispered, “Why do fools do these things?” He had 30 seconds to contemplate the question which was so normal to some, and so foreign to others…the eternal, unanswered question of “Why?” He knew, wanted to turn around and shout, “Because we are mad to live, to burn, burn, burn with new life.” Words without sound formed on his tongue. Then the whistle blew. And in a mighty torrent the fools rushed in!

Screams of ecstasy, of pain, of agony pierced the silent shore as the herd in a swarm plunged into the glacial sea. The ocean churned, consuming the white bodies of last year’s death. Resurrected red bodies emerged, burning with a brand new birth.

And there’s the answer to the question of “Why,” he thought, as he dragged his freezing body from the defeated frosty waters. “Yes!” he shouted. His arms rose in victory, welcoming the New Year and a continuation of his life as a fool.

“Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
They stand upon the threshold of the New.”
Edmund Waller

Happy New Year!


Bud Hearn
January 5, 2012