Mysterious Monkey #2
img #1: darkened bathroom
img #2: horseback riding in a mountain
img #3: crack dealer arrest
img #4: cubicle
It is dark.
In the background, a phone is ringing and a receptionist is answering; the clock is ticking at fourteen dollars an hour. But in here, in the bathroom, it is dark, and little salt-water droplets are dripping. Do I miss her? Yes. But I am beginning to realize, too, that this will change me forever.
"Horses aren't stupid."
This is what he tells me: it's to make me less afraid. Horseback riding along mountain cliffs is scary, especially to a fraidy-cat 10-year-old. But the horses, my camp leader says, aren't dumb, and won't just run over the cliff. I'm glad I was young enough to believe that, before I got a hundred self-administered lessons in self-destructive nonsense. Clearly, what the horse needed was a girl horse he was crazy about. Then he'd run right over that cliff, probably caught by a ... well, nevermind.
The newspaper vendor asks me: what did he do? She means the black man, being arrested by three white police officers on bicycles. He is meek, and poor, and our left-center (or just plain left) sensibilities tell us it is racism. The newspaper vendor clucks her tongue at the way the justice system works, and says that all that poor man ever does is ask for money. Doesn't bother anyone! I agree, quietly, not mentioning that I know for a fact he's selling crack.
"Take it down."
This is the directly-stated message of the manager I've got, who is talking to me about pictures of a girl I've got in my cubicle. I think they're nice; the conservative, Illinois-located workers think they're scandalous. I take them down and replace them with many others. I don't get invited back, of course, to work there next summer; so I go to work someplace else, with a darkened bathroom that locks. Just as well.
img #2: horseback riding in a mountain
img #3: crack dealer arrest
img #4: cubicle
It is dark.
In the background, a phone is ringing and a receptionist is answering; the clock is ticking at fourteen dollars an hour. But in here, in the bathroom, it is dark, and little salt-water droplets are dripping. Do I miss her? Yes. But I am beginning to realize, too, that this will change me forever.
"Horses aren't stupid."
This is what he tells me: it's to make me less afraid. Horseback riding along mountain cliffs is scary, especially to a fraidy-cat 10-year-old. But the horses, my camp leader says, aren't dumb, and won't just run over the cliff. I'm glad I was young enough to believe that, before I got a hundred self-administered lessons in self-destructive nonsense. Clearly, what the horse needed was a girl horse he was crazy about. Then he'd run right over that cliff, probably caught by a ... well, nevermind.
The newspaper vendor asks me: what did he do? She means the black man, being arrested by three white police officers on bicycles. He is meek, and poor, and our left-center (or just plain left) sensibilities tell us it is racism. The newspaper vendor clucks her tongue at the way the justice system works, and says that all that poor man ever does is ask for money. Doesn't bother anyone! I agree, quietly, not mentioning that I know for a fact he's selling crack.
"Take it down."
This is the directly-stated message of the manager I've got, who is talking to me about pictures of a girl I've got in my cubicle. I think they're nice; the conservative, Illinois-located workers think they're scandalous. I take them down and replace them with many others. I don't get invited back, of course, to work there next summer; so I go to work someplace else, with a darkened bathroom that locks. Just as well.
posted by Anonymous at 7:22 PM
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