Seducing the American Mind

Alex Thorn

I have always understood things. My mother standing distraught at the side of my grandmother’s bed – her isolation mimicking the lifeless body of her own mother – upset because the life insurance will be divided also to my aunts and uncles; my father’s daily vacuous hope that he would one day rise to Assistant Shipping manager, slaving away for a pittance; the teachers forcing rhetoric into the minds of the hapless sheep that are shepherded through their childhood led to believe that the answers in life lie in a textbook. It is hard to trust yourself – though often I can be fairly convincing – when you first look at something. But, behind all the glamour and bullshit of this world, everyone is the same: striving to earn his place in the Puritan based social climate where the rich drive minivans and enjoy sipping homemade coffee out of a Starbucks mug so that the other parents at the soccer game know damn well that he paid twenty five dollars for a cheap, machine crafted, steel thermos and a nine dollar pile liquid. That is all this world is: an incoherent jumble of false appearances and perceptions of reality that are so seductive that we all want to believe they are true.

Much of my childhood was spent in my lofty third floor attic-turned-bedroom. Either by coincidence or in an effort to expel me from the livelihood of the family, I was “granted” the hot, stuffy, isolated living quarters by my parents upon our arrival in our new house. I remember reading perfect books by Morrison and Salinger and Shakespeare and thinking how wonderful it would be to live in a world where things fit together in a puzzle, albeit a complicated one, but a puzzle nonetheless. Sitting in the hard, upright, wooden chair next to my window, I acquainted myself with the only real friends I have ever known – Holden, Guitar, Don Juan. Even when my mother, in her dire attempts to recall me to the shallow hell of her life, set out some pre-made salad or a leftover meat loaf in a dismal effort to rekindle our family spirit and draw me to the dining area, it wasn’t good enough for me; I was so much better than that. The boys at school all strutted around the halls and courtyards flashing their Tag watches and their yearbook smiles, and what did I have? Some fucking lousy books by people who couldn’t get outside and actually live so they had to sit alone in their houses all day and write.

I reckon the reason I’ve told you so much at the start, in fact, is because you need to know what it is like to be so much smarter than everyone else: to see one thing, and understand why that thing had occurred by looking into basic human nature. We all want what we can’t have – we all are willing to believe whatever is necessary in order to get it, true or false – and that we tend to hate that which is unattainable. Living is like reading a novel: all the people life are just characters who always have an ulterior motive – and if someone appears sincere, they are often being governed by some higher fate, like an author, which some snobby prep school student can sit down and analyze and pretend the knows what God had in mind.

During my break, I decided to go into the courtyard between the two wings of the school and read one of my newest purchases, The Great Gatsby. I hated it; all the running around, the parties, the men and women, the cars, the valley of ashes, all based on the one thing that people who have it manipulate to help them appear as if they have more and that the people who don’t have it will break themselves trying to get it: money. Ah, James Gatz, you lonely sap; grow up! I sat next to the oak tree in that courtyard as an added character in Fitzgerald’s tragedy, the only one who knew that Gatsby is a liar, Jordan is a bitch, Tom is a rich snob, Nick is a helpless believer, and Daisy isn’t worth it. I knew it all but, at the same time, I understood the characters, as much as I despised their human flaw: I understood why Gatsby needed to project his façade; I understood the attraction of Gatsby for Nick – that he represented the idealized American Dream for Nick; I understood the vacuous and engulfing nature of Daisy; I couldn’t blame Tom for his pompousness, nor can I accept any interpretations of his character that criticize his pretentiousness, because I know that if any of the other characters or even critics of the novel were around such an brilliant woman as Daisy, they would use all their means to keep her forever. And, as much as I hated the novel, I knew that I understood its characters because there was something about Gatsby that captivated me and kept me reading.

A classmate of mine passed by with two girls and I gave them a nod.

            “Hey Michael!” I blurted out as I hid Gatsby and quickly rose.
            He paused and stopped – the girls stopping as he did. “What’s up Andy?”
            “Oh – uh – just sleeping through a class. No biggie.” I knew it was ridiculous and they laughed because they knew it was too. I noticed his hat. “You a Mets fan?”

“Whatever man.” I began to respond, but they passed as some farouche part of me scared them away.

There was something wonderful and splendid about Michael and his dim walking companions: they were so brilliant. And I knew, as Michael and his two doyennes strutted along through the courtyard, his hands gesturing in a way that to me looked violent because I couldn’t hear the conversation and the ladies in their expensive clothes that were made to look rugged and worn out so that no one would know that they were really fifty two dollars from Abercrombie and Fitch, the sun shone on them. As I sat back down under the shade of the oak tree, I understood it all. They walked with an effervescent glow that captured me – engulfed my whole attention – spontaneously surefooted, elegantly casual, effortlessly supreme. And I wanted it, even though it was so goddamn pathetic and fake.

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