Bomb Cyclone and its Effects on Harvard - 1

A Novella

1

Trumplicous – and Trumplalada - Trumplestiskin; all the sounds that roll off your tongue as you see the 110 days spent - mostly at his hotels - on vacation … in a year. If that does not steam you - or esteem you - I have plenty more facts sous la main. From Abraham Delano Fitzgerald Reagan Jr. to Dr. Deadbeat Dad in one easy blunder. It's a gift to eponymous entitle such pieces of phantasm for our pustulant Presidency, even during one’s emerging formative decade. N'est pas?

I suppose I should introduce myself in my owner parlours way- I am a novelist, or at least, I could be one if I had more practice. But practice makes it less imperfect, and where is the fun of that? Perhaps, I could describe what I look like, but that would mean going over to a Mahogany mirror - or at least polished faux-maho, and describing what I see. There are no wrinkles, and no lines, no hen's feet. That is what being in the last year of high school does to you - you are still a child by law, and when you look in the mirror you see faint impressions of the adult that you will become. But inside, you already feel ready for anything, in your black dress, blonde hair, and tennis shoes – and a titular etiolated spiked beret. (I wish that the running shoes were magically replaced by espadrilles, but I haven't the cash.)

A minuscule number of other people agree. And if you are precise - they may have a point, but you do not know what, exactly, they are trying to tell you. It may be the disorganized way that you think - but then your mother thinks that way too, so cannot be just that. But all that anyone will tell you is “You not ready for that” in hushed and mystic tones.

Has anyone has anybody been ready for anything that is in the least bit important? Why did this country elect Trump - a seething mass of contradictions, if there ever was one? What were the old people thinking, precisely, when they part their flabby bodies in the voting booth and checked off his name to be President of the United States? Was it short-term dementia? Or was it some theocratically given evangelical mission that is incomprehensible to nonbelievers?

That is why it is to be a novelist - a statesperson tells people what they need to hear, and are ready for it. But a novelist tells people what they need to hear, and watches them scream and wretch to avoid the topic. The first time, pour moi, was kissing a boy, and how well that went down was when I found the mark when I told it. That's the sort of maniacal anger in your audience that you must long for - the extremity of feeling is more important than whether it is “for” or “against” whatever it is you are saying – even if in a mopey way. Imaginer c’est choisir. We chose wrongly.

Check off the list of things I should have introduced, my milieu should be zealously on the list. But do you want to hear about a well-off American East Coast suburban town? Especially one that is just about like all of the others, pretending to be far more rural than it is? With an artsy-craftsy downtown built in the middle of last decade schmaltz? No, think so, because you can just imagine it by the paved streets, and wooden telephone poles which string out wires. Wires which have no purpose other than to convey electricity, as far as anyone can tell. The buildings are, in general, white and slat-board wooden - with the occasional brick building cast in every block or so. Of course, all lawns are meticulous - almost everybody has somebody to look after them. With all of the things just so - we would not want to have property values drop now, would we? If you need more settings, then look up on Trulia some property values that bunch in the 1,000,000 range. At least a few will be on my block, bet on that.

But that is the gag - the parents here are deeply Republican (even if they're Democratic) while the kids could not be anything but against whatever party lets the parental units in the front door. We live with them, so we know their deepest darkest faults intimately. Who is sleeping with who, who has it out for whom, and a welter of details which could be set in - just a minute now, have the book on my shelves - ah, yes, Peyton Place. It is a book so delightful about the last century, but someone would have to invent it if it did not exist already - of course, that is a line from somewhere. But fortunately, it will do, in a slightly damaged paperback. My mother might have read it - though who lent it to her is impossible to say - the name in the front is not hers but is also not legible.

Looking out my window, which has a view onto the front yard, with all of the naked oaks populating the dark view, The grass has begun to molting into white, as the snow falls from greytatics distant clouds. A collage of Monet proportions, and Renoir aspects - blandness into life.

That this is going to be the determining factor of my life - sired by 2 people who have won the rat race - if using an old expression is de rigueur - but are nowhere close to being in the 1%, whose exploits that we keep reading about. Just bright enough to realize that not bright enough is in the cards.

Political friends keep talking about the “news” as if it is some sort of bombshell, but anybody with any reading comprehension already knows this. What I want to know is what comes next. Other than old people dying and leaving their inheritance to somebody else. (This is a topic of conversation out of my father's mouth at every dinner table that he deigns to ensconce himself at. He has important work at his company, mainly managing subordinates, and cleaning up their messes.)

It is getting dark out, and checking over the homework - just to make sure that there are a couple of easily correctable flaws that the mother can find. This way, she will not dig into the real meat of the topic, which she would then see as subversive - or at least as subversive as can be to the Advanced Placement English teacher. The calculus will have to wait for Father to get off his work - fortunately, he does not realize that it is exceedingly easy to cheat since the teacher uses well-oiled formulas from a textbook that was old when our teacher studied it. The trick is knowing the name of the professor, and how to get into the PDF. Of course, the way to teach students respect for education is to pay teachers as little as possible.

This was learned from the boy who wanted to be something other than a boyfriend - as is usual for bright individuals, he does not have the savvy to know what to do. So – sponging all that I could from him - and then tossed him out. Which may not have been a wise choice.

But then my iPhone rang, and it was not a number that was recognized.

So, flopped onto my bed - which was utilitarian, but not my choice - simultaneously pitching my phone on the bed sheets at the same time as the speaker was hit. Then came the decision - should I take it, or risk being snagged by some phish operator, the kind that offers you some deal on something that you do not want and do not need? It was not a hard decision, no phone there was little to connect it to the outside world. Press and the world opens up to you.

“Hello, who is this?” Only signs that could be read from the voice would be registered. There was a secret terror that the voice would be registered as an adult - but that was something that only the caller could decide.

There was no answer for a moment, and the immediate response was to hang up - but then a familiar voice came through - it was Lily Zhang - of course, I knew her. Half the school did too, but it was vaguely possible that “friendship” could be used. Perhaps.

The voice over the phone started speaking, and a high-pitched whisper.

“Right number? This is my new phone for Christmas.”

“Christmas? Does your family celebrate Christmas? To tell, when did you convert?”

“Anytime for presents is a good time to celebrate. We are not religious or anything, but presents make everything” - a noun was being searched for - ”liwu. Sorry if I speak a foreign language at you.”

“What does it mean? Do not go to Chinese classes, partially because I am not – hello - Chinese.” Speaking Chinese about a register up from my normal voice.

“It’s Mandarin, thank you very much. It means presents - and the form of an offering - like to a goddess. My people like getting gifts from people who otherwise appear to eat your food.” Her eyes rolling up had to be her response - it was one of the things that she tried - badly - to control. But then her ma does it, and it is hard to control things that you see every day.

“So what are your parents doing?”

“Right now Ma and her numerous relatives are discussing the ways of making the various soups. Is extremely long process.” And boring. “But that is not what wants to be about.”

“My all is doing the same with her relatives. That you had something else was obvious, there are lots of people that you can complain about the habits of your tribe.” There was a vague grumbling, which was not going away from my voice.

“The thing is more important to discuss it over the iPhone - it is much too important.” Repeating a word means that she wanted to emphasize the point.

“When do you want to get together tomorrow?”

“Hoping that tonight would be possible.”

“My parents are strict - normally they do not let me use the car unless there is some reason. They big into lessons, and sports, because they know when these are happening.”

“It is just a mile from you.”

“It is cold outside, and unless the weather report was wrong - windy - as well.” The thermometer could have been pushed up - that means that father was watching pennies again. But don't feed the hand that hits you.

“It is really important. Would not call, if it were not.” There was a long strange silence - as if the curtain between us had been lowered - and it beckoned. Imagining her face - with long black hair and respectable circular classes – it was clear that this would be the only friendship I had in high school - with spectacularly spotty instances of the association that amounted to a mere breath of the wind. Rocking horses with stirrups, when over the horizon were mustangs without cadence, in abundance.

“It will take me a few minutes to get outside. But - this is risky, and there will be consequences.” Somehow, it was clear - perhaps even very clear - that her coming over me was not going to happen. It was the Zen of the situation.

The first challenge was the easiest - on the 2nd floor my father was typing away at the laptop - it should have been on the scrap heap, but he managed to husband it along for more years than it should have any right to exist. But he was the only person who used Windows in the family, and it was a point of pride for him. He also kept it towards the wall, so no one could see what he was doing. The trick was to clamber down the stairs noisily, and thus register to his mind that someone was going downstairs - and then in an instant keep softly - even gingerly - on the bottom half of the stairs. This way my mother would not check where. You see there was a veranda on the far side of the layout of the place, and while it was hard to open the glass doors, it did work. The only question was how to get something over my shoulders and onto my feet.

Looking around my room, capturing a memory of my closet, that there was the perfect setup - a pair of dark shoes, almost, but not quite, black - and a pair of what my grandfather would call galoshes that fit over them just barely. So, I rumbled around the closet, grabbed my purse - and then stopping cold. How would the jacket out? That was just too much of a stretch. It was at this point, the obvious thing to do was to pitch a jacket out the front window, and hope that it was not noticed. But that is rather easy – Ma and her friends would be gossiping. Standing up, there was a moment when commitment came to the fore. Dragging the jacket to the front window, waiting for the chance to lose it into the outside.

The light dragged on my eyelids, but there was no one looking. It was just the pause of terror that enamored me. Then in a marked difference - over by the front window, opening it up about halfway and descended the jacket with an air of nonchalance. But nonchalance is part of my repertoire.

Quietly, easing closed the sash - with no noise from either the master bedroom or from downstairs, delicately picked my way towards the front staircase. And then freedom from the prison that is your parent’s household – because I knew how to sneak out. The outer web is unused in the colder months...

Open and shut – the veranda door, that is. Now the only challenge is to put on my overshoes, sneak out of the backyard, fetch my jacket–like glamor, and be gone like a ghost.