From: larryw@sun.lclark.edu (Larry Westdahl)
Subject: Solid Waste
Organization: Lewis & Clark College, Portland OR
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 17:33:41 GMT



copyright 1988
(Comments, good or bad, always appreciated)

____________________________________________________________________________

- SOLID WASTE - 



	There are demons in life, little things like awkward glances and
hasty decisions, that fall arbitrarily on our lives and forever alter our
vision of the fututre.  I had known where I was going with my life, known
almost instinctively since I was a child, and it never occurred to me that
my dreams clung so precariously to years and years of idealism.  Never
occurred to me, I should say, until I inexplicably fell in to uncharted
territory, and came face to face with the viper lady, and a molding 
heap of garbage.
	I had been in college for one term.  I liked my teachers, they liked
me, and all considered I was doing well.  I wrote a paper on Camus that set
the Enlgish department on its ears, mainly, I think, because I was a 
Freshman.  They told me that my conclusions were "extraordinarily profound."
Truth is, I think Camus is sort of an asshole, but I knew the English
department was in to that Existentialist crap, and I wanted a good grade.
The point is, I was doing well.  It was just before second term, when I
was jerking my academic advisor around, when things started to go down hill.
Carlosn was his name, I think.  He was a squat little man with severe balding 
(that he covered up unsuccessfully with the few strands of remaining hair),  
and a few drops of sweat that always crept down his protruding jowls.
	"Mr. Peter Garrett," he said, looking at my file, then at me.
	I nodded.
	"You have a few electives you can take," he said, sitting behind
his desk, patting his face with a hanky.  "You know, to fill up the 
remaining quarter hours."  I nodded again, starring out the window.  "Also
helps in nailing down a major."
	"Why not art?" I said, pulling my attention away from the window,
and back in to the conversation.  To this day, I don't know why I said
art.  It was just one of those things that falls in to your head and out
your mouth before you know what you've said.
	"What sort of art?" He perked up in his chair.
	"Modern," I lied.  "I do modern art.  I've been doing it a long
time."
	"Well then, I'm sure I could squeeze you in to Ms.Olhovsky's
advanced class.  It's mostly intended for majors, but if you think you
can handle it. . .?"
	I thought of admitting just then that I had lied, but it was one 
of the few times in my life when I couldn't speak.  I just sat there and 
smiled, and as Carlson went on, sweating more profusely by the minute,
I found it more and more difficult to spit anything out.  I thanked him
when he was through, and escaped in to the fresh air. 
	The huge buildings of the campus were sprawled around me, each 
possessing a sort of majesty in their Eighteenth Century architecture.
And surrounding each building, and extending as far as the eye could
see, was a lwan so green, so perfect, that it would have been almost a 
dissapointment, a sacrilege, to see a lawn mower chugging across the
grounds.  You just assume lawns like that naturally occur.  It really was
a perfect place, this college, and I had dreamed of being here all my life.
Now I was faced with my first real challenge, and something inside me
said that I wouldn't be dissapointed;  this wasn't the place for that.	


	"Why didn't you just say something like modern dance?" Digger said,
probing the bottom of an empty bag of chips.  "Don't they just jump up and
down and bang their heads against the floor?  You can do that.  I've
seen you."
	I sat on my bed, twirling a baseball in my hands.  "I don't know
what I was thinking, Dig.  I wasn't thinking.  It was like demonic 
possession or something."
	"Why don't you just go down there tomorrow and tell them you
changed your mind.  Tell them you're not inspired, or something like that."
	"No," I said, huring the ball to the floor.  "I can't walk away
from this.  I don't have it in me to walk away."  I fell on my back and 
folded my arms behind my head.  "Hell, I can draw.  I drew in high school.
Jim Morrison.  Hendrix.  The teacher liked them."
	Digger looked up from the bag for the first time.  I knew this 
could be bad, and judging by his expression, Digger did too.  "You still
have time to get out," he said.  "Don't forget I said that when this is
all over."
	"Right-o."
	I had known Digger since fifth grade, and even then I had considered
him the voice of reason.  The few times I rejected his advice I regretted
the decision.  Apparetly, I hadn't learned.  I was as stubborn as he was
reasonable, and it was this mutual understandig that solidified
our friendship;  he continued to give sound advice, and I continued to push
him in directions he never would have explored on his own.


	The first day of the new term arrived, and everything had gone 
remarkably well.  The art class was the last class of the day, and that's
when things started to get interesting.
	My first impression when I walked in to the art building was that
I had never been surrounded by so many unusual people in all my life. It 
was worse than the Continental terminal at O'Hare.  The instructor,
Ms.Olhovsky, was extremely thin, about fifty.  She wore all black, and her
hair was in a bun so tight I could swear it was pulling her face up in 
abstract vertical contortions.  She had milky white skin, and an underbight
that showed when she spoke and her bottom teeth protruded.  I took a 
chair in the back of the room.  Ms.Olhovsky moved around the room so
fluidly, so stealthily, that I had to struggle to find her again every time
I looked away for a moment.  She could be standing behind me at any moment,
and I wouldn't know it. 
	She stood at the head of the class, and slapped her hand three 
times on her desk, the sound cutting through the murmur of quiet 
conversation.  
	"You are all quite advanced now," she said, spitting her words
out in a quick staccato.  She paused, peering around the room humorously.
"In this class you are free to break the rules that have been so rigorously
enforced.  You are free."  She continued to repeat the word "free,"
eventually closing her eyes, and almost moaning, said it one
last time. "Freeeee."  She gasped, placing her hand on her heart like some. 
sort of exclamation. It made me nervous.
	"Your first assignment," she continued, "is to show me your vision."
She paused again.  "Don't think," she snapped, "let your inspiration make 
love to you."
	She eyed the class, surverying each student, it seemed, like a 
cobra.  She reminded me of the lady on The Munsters, only not very funny
at all.  I had to think of a project, but it was impossible to concentrate 
in that classroom.  Since the class only met once a week, I would have 
some time.

	The process was painful.  I didn't know anything about art.  
Especially modern art.  I saw a pile of sheet metal in the park last year,
and I didn't realize until I saw the sign identifying it as sculpture that
it wasn't some sort of vandalism.  I finally decided to throw a bunch of
garbage together, in hopes that I would at least get a D for effort.
	I went to the city dump that Saturday.  As I sifted through the 
piles of garbage, I held a terry-cloth towel over my face to shelter my
nose from the smell of rotting food.  I gathered crates, bottles, hub caps,
steering wheels, and other pieces of refuse.  I took it back to my dorm, 
and threw it all on the floor.  Exhausted, I sat on my bed, starred at the 
junk, and, for some time, contemplated what I had just done. For the 
first time I was beginning to feel a bit ashamed.  
	Wanting to spend as little time as possible, I arranged the junk
in no particular order, and tied it together with a rope.  Coincidentally,
it looked very much like a heap of tied up crap, just as I suspected.  I
began to get nervous.  Not because I particularly cared about the class,
but because I so hated to be emarrassed.  I considered drinking myself in
to a stupor just to get my mind off the situation when I realized that I 
hadn't thought of a name for my project.  "Tied up shit?"  Or perhaps,
"Crap in Bondage."  I fell on to my bed, and figured the best alternative
would be to skip the class altogether.  I laid on my back, my head hanging
over the edge of the bed.  I could see the newspaper lying on the floor.
The headline read "Crisis in India."  That sounded catchy.  
	Digger showd up around ten that night.  By that time I was 
slobbering drunk, but not too much to see his gaping mouth and his wide 
open eyes.  
	"What the hell is this?" he said, half whispering.
	"It's 'Crisis in India!'" I said, spreading my arms triumphantly.
"My art project."
	He sat on his bed, slowly removing his back pack from his shoulders,
his eyes fixed on the pile.  "God, Pete.  Why didn't you go to the 
Counseling Center, or something?  I mean, this is wierd even for you."
	"Oh, dont worry." I sat next to him, patting his shoulder.  "I'm
dwunk."
	"I smelled as much," he said turning his head away.  "Enjoy it
while it lasts."

	I walked in to the classroom with my project under a sheet.  I sat 
in the corner, hoping Ms.Munster wouldn't notice me.  Several people in the 
class volunteered, and it seemed for a time, that I might be able to escape.
This was not to be my day.
	"You!" Olhovksy said, pointing her bony finger at me.  "You
go next." 
	Thinking better of protesting, I carried the heap to the front
of the room, set it down, and tore the sheet off before I had any chance to
reconsider.  Everyone was frozen, glaring at the heap, then at me, then
back at the heap, with their mouths open a crack.
	"What. . .what do you call this?" Ms.Olhovsky asked.
	"Crisis in India," I said, looking at the floor.
	I was mortified.  I had damned myself in front of the enire art
department.  After several aching seconds, the teacher fell in to her chair.
A look of utter defeat covered her thin, pallid face.
	"It's simply brilliant," she said, waiving a hand in the air.
	I almost broke in to laughter.  Not out of happiness, but out of 
a complete and total sense of disbelief.  At that moment, you could hear
a pin drop, and it seemed she was waiting for me to say something.
	"It's exquisite," a student said, finally.  "It teems with 
hidden meaning."  
	Yeah, and hidden orange peels too, I thought.
	"It truly exemplifies the crisis in New Dehli, and the stuggle
of the Sikhs," another put in.
	I was shocked.  These people had spent hours on thier projects 
and got nothing more than constructive criticism.  I spent fifteen minutes
on this piece of shit, and now I'm some sort of Picasso.  It all made me
kind of angry.  What these people saw as art was just a pile of crap, for
Chirsts sake.  Like an idiot, I glued a fake grin on my face and thanked
everyone for their kind words.
	"It's the most inspired work of art I have ever seen.  Such 
emotion," Byron Tilden added.  This coming from a guy who admitted to me
last week that he never looked at a Hustler magazine because he preferred 
nude statues at the art museum.
	After class, the teacher approached me.  She seemed more 
frightening than ever.  In the back of my mind I was hoping she was 
going to tell me it was all a big joke.  Some sort of Freshman hazing.
	"Your work has the essence of tru emotion," she said, in a deep,
cavernous voice.  It's honest, gritty, true to life."  She looked at me
hard.  "I want you to display this work at the New Artists Festival in
town next week."  A smile crept out from her pursed lips for the first
time.  "You have quite a gift, young man."
	Just as in the counselors office, I could not say a word. I just
nodded my head and smiled dumbly.  She took this as an agreement, then 
retired to her office.  My only solution was to take the heap back to my 
room, and say that it god destroyed by mistake.  
	"Oh, by the way," she said, peeking her head out her office door,
"I think you should leave it here for safe keeping.  Okay?"
	I smiled murderously, and nodded.
	Walking back to my room, I wondered if this was what higher 
education was all about.  I hoped not.  Maybe I should have taken music.
Maybe if I banged my head against a garbage can I could go to Carnegie
Hall. 

	The art show reared its ugly head sooner than I had expected.  In 
sort of a twisted, demented way, I was looking forward to it.  I put on the
trendiest designer clothing, and I slicked my hair back.  I wore sun
glasses too, for effect.  It was night, and it would be difficult to see,
but maybe that was for the best.  I decided that for the art show my name
would be Tred.  No first name.  No last name.  Just Tred.  If these 
people wanted a mysterious, elusive genius, that's what I was going to
give them.  
	"Want to come?" I said to Digger, who sat at his desk reading some
book about Biochemistry.
	"No way."
	"Come on," I pleaded, "you need a break."  He looked at me 
helplessly.  He knew full well that if I kept working on him he would 
say yes.  "It would be fun."
	"I hate you," he sighed, slamming the book shut.
	I dressed him up in clothes worse than the shit I was wearing.
A combination betwen some gold chains and a pink satin blouse that I 
borrowed from the girl across the hall.  
	We walked in to that exhibit with these smug grins on our faces.
	"I feel so stupid," Digger said, teeth clenched.  "You owe me big."
	I mustered up the worst European accent I could think of, and began
greeting people randomly.  People even stranger than the ones I met in
that art class.  In different ways they were all as frightening as that 
teacher.  
	"And who are you," one man asked, in an accent even worse than 
mine.
	"Tred," I said, mysteriously.
	"Tred who?"
	"Tred.  Just Tred," I returned in complete dead pan.  I pulled
a pack of Marlboros out of my coat pocket, lit a cigarette and gestured
towards Digger.  "And this is my friend, Boffo."  Digger's heel
gouged in to my calf.  The man winked at me, then glanced devilishly 
in to Digger's eyes.
	"That's my piece over there," I said, breaking the silence.  
"Crisis in India."  His eyes left me, and he looked passionately at the 
heap of trash.  As he began to point out all of the sublte intricacies
of the work (which, incidentally, I had failed to notice), a small crowd
joined him, throwing in their own praises.  One guy had tears in his eyes.
Seeing all those people fawn over a tied up heap of trash made me feel
that perhaps everything I had ever been taught about the human character
was wrong.

	As I lay in bed that night, I thought for a long time about what
had happened.  If people could fall for that shit, how could I ever 
trust the feelings of another human being?  I remembered all of the good
grades I got in high school;  the more affected the paper, the higher 
the grade.  Teachers always used to find things in those papers that 
I never put in them in the first place.
	"Digger," I said in a hushed voice. "You awake?"
	"Yeah."
	"Maybe I'm not cut out for this.  College."
	The light flicked on on Digger's half of the room.  He propped 
himself up with his arm, and rubbed his eyes.  "What do you mean?"
	"I don't know.  These people.  How am I supposed to know if 
anything I do is of any value?"
	"Come on, Peter," he said.  "Ever since we were kids you've been
talking about this time.  It was a fucked up scene.  I know. I was there.
But you can't let that get to you."
	Digger was always serious when he used my name.  Digger always 
had the answers.  I was waiting for him to say something that was going to
make sense of the whole thing, like he always did.
	"Just try to forget about it," he said, turning out his light.  
After a few minutes, I heard his slow, mechanical breaths.  
	I slipped out of bed and walked outside, still in my pajamas.  The 
moon was big, shedding a steely blue light over the campus.  The lawn
glistened with dew, and was somehow more perfect at night than it was 
during the day.  I sat down, pressing my hand on the crisp even blades.
There was a faint hum coming from somewhere, becoming louder by the second.
Then it was a roar, as I saw the silhouette of a man on a John Deere lawn
mower, chugging across the landscape.



	
-- 
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
**larryw@lclark.edu**  |STEVIE for presidend     | "In human relations 
Writer, Musician,      |CHRISTINE for VP         |  kindness and lies are
Laker fan, Blazerhater.|LINDSEY for Sec. o' State|  worth a thousand truths."