Generation X (26 page)
Mountains
never seemed this big, but then mountains, in spite of their ambitions, can never annex the atmosphere. And to think that Dag told me these clouds were
small.
At last, at the Highway 86 junction where I turned sharply right,
I w a s a b l e t o s e e t h e r o o t s o f t h i s m u s h r o o m . I t s s i m p l e s o u r c e b o t h made instant sense and filled me with profound relief: farmers within a small area were burning off the stubble of their fields. The stratospheric black monster created by the frail orange rope of flame that ran across their fields was insanely out of proportion to the deed—this smoke cloud visible for five hundred miles—
visible from outer space.
The event had also become something of a chance tourist attraction.
Traffic had slowed down to a trickle past the burning fields, and scores of vehicles had stopped, including mine. The
piece de resistance,
aside from the smoke and flames, was what those flames left in their wake—recently charred fields now in lee of the wind.
These fields were carbonized to an absolute matte black of a hue
that seemed more stellar in origin than anything on this planet. It was a supergravitational blackness unwilling to begrudge to spectators a single photon; black snow that defied XYZ perspective and that rested in front of the viewer's eye like a cut-out paper trapezoid. This blackness was so large, intense and blemishless that fighting, cranky children stopped squabbling inside their parents' mobile homes to stare. So did traveling salesmen in their beige sedans, stretching their legs and eating hamburgers microwaved back at the 7-Eleven.
Around me were Nissans and F-250's and Daihatsus and school
buses. Most occupants leaned against their cars with arms crossed over their chests, silently respectful of the accidental wonder before them—a hot, dry silk black sheet, this marvel of antipurity. It was a restful unifying experience—like watching tornadoes off in the distance. It made us smile at each other.
Then, directly beside me I heard an engine noise. It was a van
pulling over—a flashy looking red candy-flake high-tech number with smoked windows—and out of it emerged, much to my surprise, a dozen
or so mentally retarded young teenagers, male and female, gregarious and noisy, in high spirits and good moods with an assortment of flailing limbs and happy shouts of "hello!" to me.
Their driver was an exasperated looking man of maybe forty, with
a red beard and what appeared to be much experience as a chaperone.
He herded his wards with a kind but rigid discipline, as might a mother goose tending her goslings, forcefully but with obvious kindness, grab-bing them by the neck, offering them redirection.
The driver took his charges to a wooden fence that bordered the
field and separated us and our cars from it. Then, amazingly after only a minute or so, the garrulous teens became silent.
It took me a second to realize what had silenced them. A cocaine
white egret, a bird I had never seen in real life before, had flown in from the west, its reptilian instincts alert to the delicious offerings the burned fields would soon be bringing forth—now that so many new and wonderful tropisms had been activated by fire.
The bird was circling the field, and it seemed to me to belong more t o t h e G a n g e s or the Nile rather than to America. And its jet-white contrast with the carbonized field was so astounding, so extreme, as to elicit gasps audible to me from most all of my neighbors, even those p a r k e d q u i t e f a r d o w n t h e r o a d .
Then the reactions of my giggly, bouncy teenage neighbors became
charmed and unified, as though they were watching a fireworks volley.
They were
oohing
and
aahing
as the bird and its impossibly long hairy neck simply
refused
to land, circling and circling, affecting arcs and breathtaking swoops. Their enthusiasm was contagious, and I found
myself, much to their great pleasure,
o o h i n g
a n d
a a h i n g
along, too.
And then the bird circled in retreat, westward, just down the road from us. We thought its culinary meditations were over, and there were mild
boos.
Then suddenly, the egret altered its arc. We quickly and excitedly realized that it was going to swoop right over
us.
We felt chosen. One of the teens squealed alarmingly with delight. This caused me to look over in their direction. At that very moment, time must have accelerated slightly. Suddenly the children were turning to look at
me,
and I felt something sharp drag across my head, there was a
swoop swoop swoop
sound. The egret had grazed my head—it claw had ripped my scalp. 1
fell to my knees, but I didn't remove my eyes from the bird's progress.
A l l o f u s , i n f a c t , t u r n e d o u r h e a d s i n u n i s o n a n d c o n t i n u e d t o watch our white visitor land in the field, occupying a position of absolute p r i v i l e g e . W e w a t c h e d , e n t r a n c e d , a s i t b e g a n t o t u g small creatures from the soil, and such was the moment's beauty that I essentially
forgot I had been cut. Only when I idly reached up to brush fingers over my scalp to bring down a drop of blood on my finger did I
realize the d i r e c t n e s s o f t h e b i r d ' s c o n t a c t .
I stood up and was considering this drop of blood when a pair of
small fat arms grabbed around my waist, fat arms bearing fat dirty hands tipped with cracked fingernails. It was one of the mentally retarded teenagers, a girl in a sky blue calico dress, trying to pull my head down to her level. I could see her long, streaky, fine blond hair from my height, and she was drooling somewhat as she said,
urrd,
meaning bird, several times.
I bowed down on my knees again before her while she inspected
my talon cut, hitting it gently with an optimistic and healing staccato caress—it was the faith-healing gesture of a child consoling a doll that has been dropped.
Then, from behind me I felt another pair of hands as one of her
friends joined in. Then another pair. Suddenly 1 was dog-piled by an instant family, in their adoring, healing, uncritical embrace, each mem-ber wanting to show their affection more than the other. They began to hug me—too hard—as though I
were a
doll, unaware of the strength they exerted. I was being winded—crushed—pinched and trampled.
The man with the beard came over to yank them away. But how
could I explain to him, this well-intentioned gentleman, that this dis-comfort, no this
pain,
I was experiencing was no problem at all, that in fact, this crush of love was unlike anything I had ever known.
Well, maybe he
did
understand. He removed his hands from his wards as though they were giving him small static shocks, allowing them to continue crushing me with their warm assault of embraces. The man then pretended to watch the white bird feeding in the black field.
I can't remember whether I said thank you.
Percent of U.S. budget spent on the elderly: 30
on education: 2
ROLLING STONE, APRIL 19, 1990, P. 43.
Number of dead lakes in Canada: 14,000
SOUTHAM NEWS SERVICES, OCTOBER 7, 1989.
Number of people in the workforce per Social Security beneficiary . . .
in 1949: 13 in 1990: 3.4 in 2030: 1.9
FORBES, NOVEMBER 14, 1988, P. 229.
Percentage of men aged 25-29 never married . . .
in 1970: 19
in 1987: 42 Percentage of women aged 25—29
never married . . .
in 1970: 11
in 1987: 29
AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHICS, NOVEMBER 1988.
Percentage of women aged 20—24 married . . . in
1960: 72 in 1984: 43
Percentage of households under age 25 living in poverty . . . in
1979: 20 in 1984: 33
U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS.
Number of human deaths possible from one pound of plutoniurn if finely ground up and inhaled: 42,000,000,000
1984 U.S. plutoniurn inventory, in pounds: 380,000
These numbers multiplied together: 16,000,000,000,000,000
SCIENCE DIGEST, JULY 1984.
Percentage of income required for a down payment on a first home . . .
in 1967: 22
in 1987: 32 Percentage of 25—29 year olds
owning homes . . .
in 1973: 43.6
in 1987: 35.9
FORBES, NOVEMBER 14, 1988.
Real change in cost of a one-carat diamond ring set in 18-karat gold between 1957 and 1987:
(in percent): + 322
of an eight-piece dining-room suite: + 259
of a movie admission: + 180
of an air flight to London, England: — 80
REPORT ON BUSINESS, MAY, 1988.
Chances that an American has been on TV: 1 in 4
Percentage of Americans who say they do not watch TV: 8
Number of hours per week spent watching TV by those who say they do not watch TV: 10
Number of murders the average child has seen on television by the age of sixteen: 18,000
Number of commercials American children see by age eighteen: 350,000
The foregoing amount expressed in days (based on an average of 40
seconds per commercial): 160.4
Number of TV sets . . .
in 1947: 170,000
in 1991: 750 million
CONNOISSEUR, SEPTEM BER, 1989
Percentage increase in income for over-65 households (senior citizens) between 1967 and 1987: 52.6 For all other households: 7
Percentage of males aged 30—34 married with spouse present . . .
in 1960: 85.7
in 1987: 64.7 Percentage of females aged 30-34 married with
spouse present . . .
in 1960: 88.7
in 1987: 68.2
U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, CURRENT POPULATION REPORTS, NO. 423, P. 20.
Percentage of U.S. 18-29 year olds who agree that "there is no point in staying at a job unless you are completely satisfied.": 58 Who disagree: 40
Percentage of U.S. 18—29 year olds who agree that "given the way things are, it will be much harder for people in my generation to live as comfortably as previous generations.": 65 Who disagree: 33
Percentage of U.S. 18—29 year olds who answered "yes" to the question
"Would you like to have a marriage like the one your parents had?": 44
Who said "no": 55
FROM A TELEPHONE POLL OF 602 18—29 YEAR OLD AMERICANS TAKEN FOR
TIME/CNN
ON JUNE 13—17,
1990, BY YANKELOVICH CLANCY SHULMAN. SAMPLING ERROR ± a"/0. AS REPORTED IN
TIME,
JULY 16,