SoMa Literary Review - Meat of the Matter

Meat of the Matter

By Doug Mort

1984

Meyers is twenty-four now – twenty-four and there’s so much more. He believes he has found his heart of gold – Julie the cruise director on The Love Boat. As he watches her each weekday morning at ten he dreams of her turning the ship around and steering a straightaway course for him there on a mattress in his mother’s living room, cranium deep in six, seven, sometimes eight cans of Rainer Ale, his morning starter kit. More often than not he cries “Julie! Julie!” as he watches her. But the last time an elderly neighbor called the police and he was taken away on outstanding warrants for drunken walking and he’d had to call his mother and it only reminded him that something had gone horribly wrong. He’d sworn off Julie for a couple of days, but the absence has only made his heart grow fonder. Thus this morning he awaits her return.

Earlier, he cashed his daily check from his mother at the neighborhood 7-Eleven. He must have used the right tone last night and induced the proper amount of misguided guilt in her, for today he made five dollars, whereas as of late the mother has been begging for mercy by writing the checks for as little as a buck. He has extorted the checks by pilfering his mother’s quarter collection – her life saving more or less – savings that she will never be able to replace on her meager janitor’s salary at the old folks’ home. He first found the coffee can under her bed, then in her clothes hamper after she caught on and tried a new hiding place. After the hamper she gave up and offered the checks.

Leaving the store this morning he shuffled to the alley, where he puked the first beer and manhandled the second, the next four congratulating him like long-lost friends. He and they laughed and sang and talked of their resolve despite being forsaken by the universe. When he got home he had an hour to kill before the show so he lay on his back on the mattress and listened to several sensitive singer songwriters and wondered when he too would be discovered. Which made him even more resentful when he remembered that he didn’t play an instrument, remembering that he had tried to learn once but like everything else on God’s black planet (animate or inanimate, it didn’t matter) the instrument had forsaken him. Now as he lies splayed across his piss-stained sickbed he knows that Julie may be his last remaining hope. Thus the opening theme song starts and Meyers issues a prayer. Oh Lord, he beseeches the television screen, Please don’t let me be misunderstood.

Speaking of the Lord, today’s episode is nothing short of Revelation. Julie comes to the aid of a depressed war vet. It is revelatory because Meyers is suddenly struck with a purpose, a plan that will also win Julie’s heart. His awakening rides piggyback on something that took place the day before.

Occasionally Meyers walks to his mother’s place of employment, and when the coast looks clear, he sneaks down the delivery road and squeezes between the bushes and peers through a window and spies on her. Usually she’s sitting alone at the long folding table at the center of the utility/break room, nibbling on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and looking at her travel magazines, dreaming about places she will never go. All around her are heaving and collapsing shelves of cleaning supplies. Soiled sheets are piled to the right of the room, bedpans to the left. Then there are the mops and brooms and buckets – they always seem to be laughing at her. The long table at which his mother sits is usually unencumbered, but yesterday a small plastic palm tree appeared dead center. Meyers had his suspicions about the responsible one: a young Mexican man who was walking toward his mother with two cups of coffee. He was no older than Meyers – a confidence man masquerading as a surrogate son, no doubt. Neatly dressed and cleanly shaved, he set one coffee down on the table in front of her and then took the chair opposite. As Meyers watched, his mother began to talk. The Mexican listened intently; he reached out his hands. Meyers’ mother took those hands and together they prayed.

Meyers could faintly remember hearing about the usurper. He sends money home to his mother! Every week! But he thought his mother had only been bluffing. Thus he left the old folks’ home stewing in spite. So discombobulated that he’d been unable to fashion an immediate response. But twenty-four hours later now, Julie and The Love Boat have provided a plan.

So…So Divine Revelation via The Love Boat told Meyers this: he would join the army and fight the ingrates in El Salvador . Protecting the United Fruit Company and free-market capitalism had worked wonders for democracy and Ronald Reagan, but it was now clear that the commies had sent cells over the border to wage an insidious, passive war by quickly populating the United States (much like the mud snail that sneaks over on boats and multiplies mercilessly and devours the fish food in the rivers of America). Soon they would rise up in mass and divide the American family (those who weren’t already belly-up from the lack of essentials). And once the cornerstone of civilization went, so went the greatness of Rome . His, Meyers’ family, was just the beginning – a warm up for the grand finale, no doubt. Yes, he is worried about the homeland, but first he will cross the seas and take the fight to the source. Then he’ll return to the motherland and deal with the usurper, drop him deep in the Sonoran desert with the rest of Lucifer’s snakes.

Of course he will get wounded. But he will bear his scars valiantly, like any decorated war hero. And Julie will read about him in People Magazine; and if not there, then from the launch of his memoir on Phil Donahue; or maybe Oprah – that new talk show for sensitive people such as himself – will see the light and sing his worth; and if not there, then from his memoir’s serial installments in the National Enquirer. Julie will meet him in Washington , where he will be the guest of honor at a medal ceremony presided over by the Gipper himself. Then he will return to his hometown a hero; and a parade will follow, after which he will build him and Julie a house on top of a hill overlooking the valley where he, a metaphorical Job Incarnate, once walked the Valley of Death but never once wavered in his faith.

So he rises from the mattress and readies himself for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Inside the refrigerator he finds a couple of glasses of Spanada in his mother’s screw-top haven. Afterward, saluting himself in the bathroom mirror, he wonders why it has taken the world so long to catch up.

***

Outside it is the middle of February – cold and ice-filled. Meyers hunkers against the wind without a jacket. Where it went, Lord only knows. All he vaguely remembers is coming to a week earlier with a blackened eye, swollen nose and no jacket. He is now convinced that the culprit is a Mexican or El Salvadoran. Either one will do.

He passes several people on the street waiting for busses, locals who look like they have been driven from their ancestral homes by the brown-skins. To them he raises a comforting hand. “I shall return!” he says. “I shall return!”

He comes upon a throng of Mexicans waiting for work. He raises his hand again, this time in absolution: “I forgive thee for thee know not what thee do.” Several laugh but Meyers forgives them a second time.

He has brought along a small amount of writing paper so he can write notes for his memoir. Halfway to the recruiters now he stops and records his feverish musings.

six-lane thoroughfare choked by fast-food franchises convenience stores section 8 apartments new type ploughshare harvest low wage tax base rich cheap food housing company store Steinbeck feudal landscape blatant extortion high-priced essentials while cauldrons of CEO’s laugh now healthcare bills direct result hippie war protestors Sixties betrayal of soldiers My Lai mockery robbing Earnest One (I am Earnest One) of all purposeful ennui vacuous Seventies ROBBED high school diploma Harvard Phi Beta Kappa partner law firm direct result Mexican Imperialism passive war mud snails multiply Golden State brown as dung rise up Satan only hope Earnest One saber charge up El Hamburger Hill commies die mother be proud Julie my love it’s a new morning in America.

Meyers breathes. Even the writing feels divinely inspired – effortless, as if he were an appointed channel. He reads it back over and is delighted with himself – so much so that he practices signing his name at the bottom of the page. For Julie, he writes, then his name. Twenty-five renditions in all. He opts for the mysterious scribble, believing it displays his lack of need for public recognition.

Humble and wise, Meyers realizes that it is now getting late. He knows that he must be moving on – moving on to the meat of the matter.

Meat of the Matter, he writes. Possible Title?

He puts the paper into his back pocket, rises and continues on.

***

The recruiter’s office sits between a Laundromat and an Adult Book Store. For some reason Meyers believes the recruiter is waiting for him – some kind of interconnected Gospel that they share. Unfortunately, Meyers’ theology is quickly shot to hell.

The recruiter jumps up behind his desk, veins bulging with disgust at the side of his neck. “Hold It Hold It Hold It! Do not, I said, do not put another foot inside that door!” He lowers his meaty paws atop his desk. He is a bow-legged bulldog with the eyes of a killer on Benzedrine. His crew cut vibrates with purpose.

“Otis of mother-fucking-ass-backwards-Mayberry. How can I not help you?”

Now it all returns to Meyers – the order of the universe. On the wall behind the recruiter’s desk is the presidential portrait. With trepidation Meyers raises his eyes. mano a mano, Reagan’s humble smile turns to a contemptuous smirk. mano a mano, Meyers is disgusted with himself.

He looks back down at the recruiter. “I—”

“If you piss on my carpet so help me I will make it so you can never piss again!”

“I—”

“I-I-I,” the recruiter mocks.

Meyers faintly recalls having been here once before – seven years ago, when he was seventeen. Back then the recruiter had remained slumped in his chair for the duration, his imperialistic dreams sunk to the bottom of the South China Sea . He never rose or spoke, the recruiter, only an ambient sigh that drove Meyers fleeing from the place. Was this the same man?

“I—”

“I Me Mine! In case you haven’t heard, Otis-of-motherfucking-ass-backwards-Mayberry, Jimmy Carter’s back on the peanut farm with his fellow peanuts and it’s a new morning in America !”

“But I thought the army took anyone.”

Flames shoot from the recruiter’s nostrils. He twists himself up. “What the fuck is your problem?”

Meyers wishes he knew.

“How old are you?”

Meyers tries to remember. Unable to recall, he says, “Can I have a jacket?”

“A jacket?”

“I’m cold.”

“Cold?”

The recruiter looks embarrassed for Meyers. Meyers understands.

“Cold?” the recruiter says. “Jesus Christ, son, do I look cold?”

“No.”

“And do you know why I don’t look cold?”

“No.”

“Because I’m not. Do you know why I’m not?”

“Because you’re not?”

“Are you being a fuckin’ wiseass now?”

“No.”

“If you are I’d love to help you with that.”

Meyers keeps quiet.

“No, my— Look here, Otis-Fuck. The reason I ain’t cold is because I pulled

up my god-damn bootstraps!”

Meyers is speechless now. He doesn’t have boots, only strapless barf-stained tennis shoes.

“Pull ‘em up, son, pull ‘em up! For God’s sake – Just-Say-NO!”

Meyers looks back up at the presidential portrait. The president, it seems,

has moved on to forgetting other things – chiefly welfare mothers, faggots and forests.

Meyers remembers everything now. He knows that if he doesn’t leave quickly he might disappear by proxy. But hadn’t he heard that the president, like him, was the son of a drunk? Where was the compassion? Where was the brotherhood?

He backs out of the door. One more dream, one more bitter ending.

Meyers shuffles to the old folks’ home. Now they are doing the tango, his mother and her friend. His better half has pushed the table out of the center of the room and they are really living it up. His mother laughs and laughs. She looks like she has blissfully forgotten ever having a son like Meyers.

He shuffles to the convenience store and spends the last of his mother’s quarters. He took them before leaving for the recruiter’s office, fully intending to repay her from the advance on his memoir.

He shuffles to the alley. Now as he imbibes among the garbage bins and greasy flotsam of fast-food empires, the dogs attack the fence. There is an abandoned kennel on the other side, and each day the hungry dogs try to break through and attack him. It is always quite a ruckus, but Meyers bears it daily as if it were his assigned lot. Sometimes he imagines them lions in the arena, awaiting his escorted arrival.

He finishes and rises to meet their challenge. He puts his cheek against the fence and takes the punches like Rocky the Italian Stallion. Hey! That’s it! He could be a boxer. His face might get pummeled to a pulp but the whole world would be shouting his name. Mey-ers! Mey-ers! Mey-ers! he hears them call. A tear comes to his eye: he’s never heard anything so beautiful in his life.

He leans harder into the fence. The dogs’ pound and scrape and growl and bark. Meyers imagines Julie tending his post-fight wounds. Now he grips the ropes with bloody martyrdom and looks out over the audience. “Julie!” he cries.

On and on he goes. A siren screams. Meyers runs like hell.

Also by Doug Mort on SoMa Literary Review:

Shelter, Enlightenment, Shouldn’t You Be Doing Something? & Black Eye

Doug Mort’s fiction has appeared in the literary print journals Transfer and Mosaic, as well as the online journal Night Train. His novel, The Troubled Life and Times of Rudy Menisini, is an unpublished, unheralded masterpiece of bug-eyed discombobulation at the hands of suburban sorcery and fried bologna sandwiches slathered with Miracle Whip.