THE CHAUFFEUR - Chapter 16

The spirits of the dead do not act the way we expect them to. In fact, with the millenia of folklore, centuries of faiths, decades of Hollywood glamor, and years of personal discussion, there has never been anything in my path that tells me different than the obvious: People are electric energy and once the person dies, the energy continues to pulse until it is either absorbed or it's dissipated.

The idea that Jeb or someone like my father lurked about in perpetual ghostlyisms was absurd to me. Both men were of the type who would become easily bored which fueled there insistence to try/do/see new and exciting things whenever possible.More than a month has past since Jeb passed away and now I walk away from a round table discussion about a man most people didn't know at all, and yet it was his genius to make each person believe that they alone know him the best out of everyone else.  I certainly could relate to that warmth.

There is much that can be wrapped in a name after one has lived a few years.  Romeo and Juliet were but children, and with limited steps on the planet the idea of "name" is one that bore no importance.  Yes, a rose will still smell as sweet, but getting a dozen long stemmed "hammered piles of dog shit" delivered to your office would not come with the same elated anticipation one would have as someone receiving a dozen "roses."  The name of "Scot" was something I could not get used to, and yet everyone only knew him by "Scot." Finally, here in front of me were people who knew him by the moniker that I was familiar with and that I could use/refer to openly without having to think about what term was appropriate for the setting.  One thing Jeb was intent on, it was keeping Jeb in a very specific container and very few were to open in and glimpse the reality of the confined air.  Knowing the true name of Scot was the first of many fingers which would eventually burst the seal and keep Jeb from having his most prized possession from existing: control.

I sit in my car for a bit before I decide to drive.  It's late.  "Late."  It was such a foreign concept to me for so long. but since attaining a job with regular office hours I have suddenly found myself in a neuter sense of production and in order to produce well, I must get to bed at a 'decent' hour.  They were organized people, 'good old boys' in a way.  Their experience was limited but they seemed to know what they were doing.  They provided a good product, although the packaging was in desperate need of touching up.  This is where I came in and I feel that as the bridge over the canyon between creator and end user, it was my responsibility to show up on time, and not looking like I drank my sorrow the night before... whether or not I actually did.

The eyes that looked back at me earlier in the evening were hungry children anxious for a taste of the meat I had hidden in my heart.  I had recently been through an awful ordeal where no information was given to me and yet I was expected to make some sort of leap into a colorful Willy Wonka 'Chocolate Mixing Room' without any means of leveraged foot stability.  It was like having a child and keeping him good all year by saying "Santa knows when you've been naughty and you've been nice." Christmas morning comes and the brightly lit tree stands guard over a mountain of gifts all wrapped in reflective paper shining with hope and anticipation of everything that is good in the world... even if it's hammered dog shit.  Upon unwrapping the gifts the child forgets everything around him... until the parent says, "there is no Santa Clause.  He is a fabricated lie," and then walks out the door... never to return. The child's mind at that moment is now flooded with emotion and confusion.  What? Was this all a lie?  Why would someone lie like that?  Where did the gifts come frrom?  The streaming list is endless.  And with no answers given, the emotion begins to be the only reality the child can understand.

This confusion and lack of information can be traumatically dramatic and destructively dismantling.  Every avenue is scoped at, looked over, analyzed, and noted - only to go back over later when not enough information has been given to provide a suitable answer to the never ending pounding in the head that spells the letters "w-h-y" in slow rhythmic repetition.  The child confused about Christmas, or the adult confused about their childhood friend. It's the same fucking process... and every person writing me emails seems to be projecting the entire cycle from their fingers, through the tubular depths of the internet until it gets projected onto my eyes.  I haven't really known the lack of closure on this level.  I can empathize based off smaller instances.  I become overwhelmed at their feelings.

I became underwhelmed with my own feelings.

The former high schoolers were gathered and without being rude or anxious, they fired off questions, none of which would compare to the overwhelming first question on everyone's mind: "So what happened?"

These were good people.  GOOD people.  I had been wavering in my belief that such people even existed anymore.  Surrounded by the hedonistic community that thrived on the "live for today" mentality that comes with the realization that self-preservation is only as good as you're alive... and 'survival' as it stands is the bare minimum of our movement, something we were getting weary of.  We no longer wanted to just survive... we wanted to LIVE and we wanted to live fabulously.  This was not just for ourselves - we would lend a hand to anyone who asked.


The concept of good was something I had to think about when trying to explain Jeb's life to people who first had to be caught up to what life is like before attempting to put our placement in it.  Their confused eyes burned in me.  I was so unmotivated.  I found myself in such a unique position... a cat in Egypt times or a key between worlds. I what I knew.  They knew what they wanted. Now it was time to link the two.

But how?