He’s Ordinary…
He’s Ordinary…
THREE WOMEN INVOLVED IN CHOP AUTOBODY FIRE SENTENCED.
March 1, 2021, Patch.com/Washington/Seattle
This marked Lola’s seventh court ordered session with Dr. Tistan. She lucked out when her father who couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore agreed to pay for capable legal defense. She had 450 hours of community service left and another 23 sessions with Dr. Tistan while the other two women sat in state prison. She was a bit guilty she wasn’t a bit guilty. Admitting her enjoyment of these sessions was a bitter pill to swallow for Lola. She couldn't shake the pleasure she got from the sterile ambiance of Dr. Tistan's office—the scent of the paper and ink, the antiseptic tang of the disinfectants, the cozy Herman Miller furniture. Despite her initial receptivity to psychiatry and psychology as “ideas” when first exposed to them late in high school, Lola quickly fell on the other side of the entire thing, concluding it just another racket. More establishment. Another shake-down of the middle class no different than the tithing preacher or the pretentious self-help author. In Lola’s opinion you were better off getting therapy anywhere else. A punching bag, yelling at YouTube clips of William F. Buckley, yelling into a pillow, meditating in nature, masturbating to Voltairine de Cleyre audiobooks, or a Molotov cocktail through the window of a small business, were, in Lola’s opinion, far more cathartic and productive in healing body and mind. It’s the only sane reaction to people born into a losing struggle. Which of course, Lola unwaveringly believes to be the truth for all of mankind. She didn’t want to be a servant of the man, and despite the wishes of her rich and prestigious family, Lola decided to attend the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts instead of accepting a scholarship at Fordham. She got good grades because she could, because she knew the fact she was accepted and chose herself not to enter the world her parents inhabited stung them all the more. The OCAC college was an oasis for people who didn’t want to participate in the “bullshit world.” So, instead they played with shit—sometimes literally. Animal shit, human shit—if it could be shaped it could be sculpted. If it could be sculpted it was art. They gave bachelor’s degrees to students willing to play in the mud and paint each other's faces and make art out of trash. She reveled in the chance to eschew societal norms, embracing the unorthodox pursuit of artistry through mediums equal parts unconventional, provocative, and ridiculous. It was an earnest attempt to let the idealism presented in spontaneous childhood creativity live on in adulthood. At least within the 46,000 square foot campus and the 140 students who occupied the grounds. The school had a good run and produced several notable artists, lasting over 100 years before shutting its doors abruptly in 2019. Students like Lola had their forthcoming semesters pulled from underneath them with no plan for the spring. The undergrads were furious. They tried to get jobs that summer, together, but for some reason on all the applications they filled out, there featured no questions about geometric abstractionism or the life of Louise Bourgeois.
One day, on the Stairmaster, Lola thought about calling her dad, waving the white flag, and climbing the corporate ladder. She was starving and her father was sending less and less money. He told her this would happen if she passed up Fordham and she hated to admit he was right. She didn’t know it yet, but he would never cut her off, although he was willing to rub her nose in a poorer life for a few months. Around this time of uncertainty, her friend Lucille, another cautionary tale of the OCAC, started taking her around Seattle to see communist open mics, where Rudy, an enigmatic figure with a penchant for embellishment, in Birkenstocks, captured Lola's attention with blue eyes, hard dick and the revolutionary writings of Mikhail Bakunin. Their connection was instantaneous, a meeting of privileged souls masquerading as proletarian warriors, united by a shared acknowledgment of their inherent hypocrisy. This dynamic swirled them into a passionate romance. Everything he did, from the books he suggested to the positions he recommended were new and revolutionary to her. He’d quote Upton Sinclair and pawn it off as his own idea. Lola was enamored. After two months of Arditi del Popolo, Proudhon, Malcolm X, and incredible sex—Rudy introduced Lola to the John Brown Gun Club and its associated gang —Revolt! Revolt! It marked a seismic shift in Lola’s worldview. RR, a far-left socialist political militia, had her under the belief that the group's unyielding commitment to dismantling capitalism by any means necessary was the right hill to die on, even if it meant committing acts of violence. She read over the story of John Brown, spent a few more nights under Rudy, and decided she was down. The means justify the ends. Death to capitalism. Lola changed her entire style. She dyed her hair three different colors and got a box tattooed on her arm. A triangle on her thigh. The local thrift store had a deal on red and black bandanas. She bought those black leather gloves that weightlifters wear. She wasn’t quite sure why, but when she held up her political sign with leather clad hands, she felt infinite. She called her dad, duped him into sending her an obscene amount of money to “get her shit together and fly home to New York,” and Lola bought the most expensive megaphone, funded the printing of a leftist newsletter and ordered matching t-shirts of Mario Savio wearing a crown of thorns for the squad. Lucille developed a radical online presence and began seeing several hundred people on her live streams. Together, this group of college dropouts and wannabe cult leaders thought they could change the fundamental pillars of America.
After 18 months of making shit out of nothing, protesting the pettiest of infractions, misinterpreting philosophy, and bickering on .4chan—Revolt! Revolt! and the larger Anti-Fascist movement at large finally had their moment. For the harsh realities of the world were about to run headfirst into their utopian dreams.
HOW GEORGE FLOYD WAS KILLED IN POLICE CUSTODY.
May 31, 2020 - New York Times Reporter Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs.
A week later the zone was established. After weeks of tireless fighting against the man, the first battle of the long war was won. The establishment was dealt a blow as Cal Anderson Park fell under the control of the protestors, stretching their dominion from Broadway to 12th Street. The police station was abandoned after an intense and bloody battle in which Lola came face to face in a standoff with a police officer who mistakenly left his helmet on his passenger seat. The universe put him face to face with the wrong pretty faced trust fund baby antifa bitch. “Hands up!” He yelled at her, not yet moving towards his belt. She obliged, slowly lifting her arms, until they were eye level with the officer. She shined her green laser into his eyes and hit him over the head with the Pellegrino bottle she quickly picked up at her feet. She stuck him clean, shattering the bottle. He tried nursing his head and grabbing her ankles at the same time but indecision cost him and Lola ran off unscathed as he bled on the ground. As she fled into the embrace of the warm summer wind, a sense of righteous vindication washed over her. For all the anarchist literature and pent-up manufactured repression, she never knew how she’d react until she was put to the test. Lola was very pleased with herself. Lola told the rest of RR and Co. as they held court in the park that she drew the blood of a cop, the blood of the establishment. She spoke with an air of pride she never before had. Together, they shared war stories all night around the flickering campfire until they fell asleep on top of each other in a great ceremony.
Three days after the autonomous zone was set up, a block party-like event took place in the park. They cooked out, cultivated gardens in centerfield, took drugs, danced with reckless abandon, and created art from garbage. It felt like a backyard burning man. But for Lola, for Lucille, for Rudy, it was more than that. The price of admission was not paper money, but their own blood, sweat, and tears. They ate off each other’s plates. For one night, and one night only, the night of July 15, 2020, Revolt! Revolt! and the rest of the alt-left movement got to live out the utopia they dreamed of in their heads. In the real world. They were free, for a moment, ungoverned by God or the State, to do as they pleased. The vibe was infectious, the delusions grew as conversations ran. The president of the United States was tweeting about them. How could this not catch on in every American city, they all thought with a gleaming optimism…
When dawn broke, the Proud Boys showed up. Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, Seattle's most notorious alt-right provocateur, was there with a bastion of toxic support. Tiny wasn’t so tiny. Rudy thought he’d be the first in the Revolt to stand up to him, and he gave it a shot, but Tiny broke his phone and his nose in one swoop and sent him crying to the hospital. Chaos erupted as violent clashes ensued between police, Proud Boys, and protestors alike. Lola wasn’t even aware of who was who as she heaved bottles from behind an abandoned car, totally oblivious to her target. Fear consumed her and she felt the need to move back. She ran across a street covered in smoke and was hit directly in the temple by a large rock. She was barely conscious on the ground below as people ran by her, over her. She stumbled to her feet, grabbed her bleeding head and carried it with her out of the zone. For this, of course, Lola was okay with using an external medical facility that accepted her family's exceptional medical insurance. This remained available to her until she was 26, thanks to the shapeshifting policy of Barack Obama, the man Lola constantly called a war criminal on message boards. She had to watch the tension boil over on the news, wearing scrubs in a hospital bed. The following days saw more shootings. The several divisions of the alt-left fractured all the unity they had in a matter of minutes. Apparently, decentralized leadership can lead to civic problems. Lola was discharged from the hospital on July 28th, a few days before the police took the zone back. She found out Rudy died from injuries sustained on the 22nd at Capitol Hill. Lucille found the alt-right lunatic responsible and found a gang of alt-left lunatics to bring along as they went hunting for his head. They stopped, first, at his family-owned business. Lucille popped the stolen car’s trunk as Lola grabbed the bricks they kept stored away with other violent paraphernalia. Lola felt like a god as she ran towards the window of the autobody shop, brick in hand, bandana up, clad in black, ready to anarchy. The first brick was a bit heavier than she thought, and as she wound up to throw, it took her down backwards. She stubbed her toe and it hurt very much, but as she lay on the ground with a bloody lip, she thought of ‘the man,’ and all he’s taken from the oppressed. She got up gnashing her teeth like a feral wolf and finally mustered up enough strength to foist the brick through the window. She once again felt a validity in her stupidity. This business was owned by a black family. Lucille had the wrong Instagram feed. Bad intel from the brainiacs headquartered at Cal Anderson Park. The rest of the girls got out and threw everything in the trunk at the poor building, before lighting it ablaze. Finally, for the first time in months, sirens and red and blue lights put an end to ill-advised vandalism. “Hands up!” The officers said, closing in, guns drawn. Lola wasn’t so bold this time. She looked up at the burning sky and cried out for her father.
-
“Lola,” she said with her patent head tilt and disarming affection, “please come in.”
Lola got off the Herman Miller Chair in the waiting room and sat on the Herman Miller loveseat in the office. Lola took off her mask, revealing her plain sailing cheeks framed by black lipstick. She was wearing a yellow and black plaid skirt, like the one from Clueless, with a black Deafheaven t-shirt, her hair in a bohemian style bun. Dr. Tristan had on a double-buttoned purple pantsuit. Her leg to torso ratio was off-putting to Lola. She crossed her legs and put her ledger sized notebook across her endless thigh. Her glasses tilted at the perfect angle to begin.
Dr. Tistan: Anything happen this week that we need to urgently address?
Lola: Uneventful week, we can just pick up where we left off. Remind me again?
Dr. Tistan: We were delving into root causes.
Lola: Ah, yes. Root causes. Therapy’s groundbreaking discovery. (sarcastic, dry)
Dr. Tistan: What would you like to discuss then?
Lola: Honestly, I’d rather not be here.
Dr. Tistan: I know that, but seeing that you have to be, wouldn’t you like to use the time productively?
Lola: I don’t believe in this quackery.
Dr. Tistan: Just talk to me.
Lola: What happened with you this week?
Dr. Tistan: I know you aren’t interested in my week.
Lola: I didn’t mean it maliciously.
Dr. Tistan: We were focusing on unraveling the root causes behind your rebellious nature, particularly considering your privileged upbringing.
Lola: I remember. Dad in the music business. Infidelity that mom was counting on…
Dr. Tistan: Have you given any more thought to that?
Lola: I had rich parents. I have rich parents. And I never got along with my mother so I took it out on my father. Because he took himself out on me.
Dr. Tistan: Have you given further thought to that?
Lola: Daughters have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by which charmed their fathers.
Dr. Tistan: Don’t quote Huxley at me like you're recruiting some freedom fighter. You can’t get away with shit that here.
Lola: (silent, blushing, slightly embarrassed.)
Dr. Tistan’s bat phone rang, the phone that only rings when another patient is suicidal. She paused the session and rushed to the phone. In her haste, she elbowed her office television remote. CNN came on the screen. Jake Tapper reporting. Dr. Tistan took the phone to another room while Lola sat in front of cable news. The image stirred a sense of disdain within Lola, who had long avoided watching cable news since her days at home, where it was a staple in her father's household. Tapper was talking about Trump and his attempted coup. Something Lola also despised. A few minutes went by as Dr. Tistan remained preoccupied with her other patient.
As Tapper's segment transitioned to an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about Jeff Bezos and his space travel nonsense—a topic equally reviled by Lola—the nausea threatened to overwhelm her. She contemplated changing the channel but found herself immobilized by a sudden wave of vertigo that left her paralyzed in the comfort of the Herman Miller chair.
She stood and leaned over the coffee table dividing Dr. and patient to grab the remote but was thwarted by another dizzying sensation that took her head for a ride. Her vision unfocused and focused back, and when the peripheral stars left the corners of her eyes—she saw Bernard Shaw and Jeff Greenfield discussing the news. The two CNN anchors she grew up knowing. Goosebumps started creeping up her spine and she jumped at the sound of Dr. Tistan re-entering the room.
Dr. Tistan: Sorry about that. Here, let me turn this off.
Lola: (heavy breath, armpit sweat.)
Dr. Tistan: Lola, are you okay?
Lola: I think I know. (She paused. Inhaled, exhaled.) I know the root cause.
Dr. Tistan: I’ll turn this off.
Lola: Don’t! Let it run. On mute.
FOO FIGHTERS BRING DOWN THE HOUSE @ THE ELECTRIC FACTORY
-November 8, 2000, Metrophiladelphia.com
…Continued in the collection Music, Memory, available now…
