The Great Green Monster

Six thirty this morning the residents of the lower half of Seckelpear Road were awoken by the clanging of an empty dumpster against pavement. Pulling aside their curtains, these homely neighbors, some whose homeliness was lesser than others, immediately drew back into their homes upon seeing the cavernous mouth of the great green monster in my driveway.

"What could they possibly be up to?" one of the wives might have asked their husbands.

"God only knows, " the husband would have responded, "but the break of dawn certainly isn't the time for it."

These men and women, along with their sons and daughters, then pretended to not care what the dumpster was for, brewed coffees, toasted breads, donned garbs, assembled briefcases, packed backpacks, got in cars and went about their business.

I did not see these events but know them to have transpired. For I was not awoken from my sleep by the crash of metal against pavement, nor was I curious about the neighbors, nor did I have coffee to brew nor workbags to fill. Nor did I fear the cavernous mouth of the great green monster.

And when at 6:30 this evening the neighbors again drove up Seckelpear Road they did not recoil from the expected emptiness of a long, green dumpster but from the sight of a monster reclining contentedly after a feast.

I sat in my now-empty garage, seeing this, the slow drivebys, smiling. Before, while I worked through the dust and decay, I had smiled even more broadly yet. I had smiled still more widely at each ringing sound of tossed junk finding its new home at the bottom of the monster's throat. I smiled when a passing mailman could not help but peer into the carnage and when today's junk mail joined it I also smiled. I smiled while heaving heavy furniture over the brim and I smiled when I took a break and had no seat to rest on.

I imagined the neighbors coming home from work and immediately turning the door's locks behind them and wondered how many realized they were locking themselves in as much as others out. Thinking of the inevitable future date when these pour souls would become aware of all the waste, I did not smile, for that thought is nothing more than sad. Standing on tip toes a top a rickety tower of things, these people would wait for a door to open up to the heavens, still unaware of the fact that simulated height does not equal flight. At the feet of these towers, and sometimes within their foundations themselves, lay the fallen bodies of those who once similarly built themselves up so high.

And I remember after my Grandfather's death when chest-fulls of property suddenly had no owner to bow to. My Grandmother chose not to hold on to most of her husband'st belongings. Perhaps she knew. One day, still in the period of mourning, my Grandmother invited her living relatives into her bedroom and emptied a drawer, the top drawer of my Grandfather's dresser, onto the bed. The floral bedsetting shook like a frothing sea as everything was divvied up between family members. My Grandmother sat propped in a corner, watching. Looking over I saw it on her face, beneath the shadows of wrinkles, a smile. She must have known.

What did she know then and I find out later? The fact that manmade objects have no meaning within themselves but only through the functions assigned to them. We buy what we want and grab what we can in order to fill a hole that simply can't be filled by meaningless things.

When we ask each other, "Who are you?" we actually ask, "What are you?"

And the answer to that question is, "A straw man," made of all that we have accrued in order to prevent deeper inquiry.

But I am more than a collection of bones that moves in concert. And I am more than a collections of bones that moves in concert that sometimes enjoys tapping its feet to certain kinds of music or turning the pages on certain types of books or standing in front of particular pictures. Who I am, who we are, is much deeper than what we have and it is an insult to think otherwise.

Today I filled a metal hole in my driveway. But I had no misconceptions of meaning in the exercise. I smiled then and I smile now.




Breakfast: Veitnamese Pad Thai. Thai Pad Thai's much better
Lunch: Big Bite Cheeseburger Hot Dog. My first and last.
Dinner: Chicken (dark meat).